It has been rumoured that Spain’s Socialist government will approve homosexual marriage when they convene for a Cabinet meeting on October 1st. This move will continue to outrage Church leaders within the country which is traditionally a Catholic country.
Jose Blanco, a leading member of the Socialist party told a rally in the northwest region of Galicia said, "The cabinet...is going to approve the change to the civil code so that people of the same sex can marry. Why are we doing this? Because people have to be in charge of their own destiny.”
The reform will still have to be approved by the Spanish parliament, however, Spain seems to be becoming increasingly liberal, and a recent survey suggested that approximately 70 percent of Spaniards indicated that they support gay marriage proposals.
The country’s population is in fact 95 percent Catholic, and Spain was ruled for four decades by the dictator General Francisco Franco, who was a renowned staunch Catholic who banned homosexuality and divorce.
The new government in Spain have been very different to this Franco era, and have shown their extreme liberal agenda. The country’s bishops have fought hard against the new government’s plans, and even called their proposals “dangerous”. Also Pope John Paul, earlier this year, gave Prime Minister Jose Rodriguez Zapatero a stern lecture on ethics and morals.
Spain are not the only country to suddenly show this extreme liberal approach however, as nine other European Union countries have made some kind of provision for recognising those committed in same-sex relationships.
In America, the arguments over gay-marriage have become a key election-year issue and a political hot-potato for the Presidential candidates. Officials in several states have used ambiguities within the law to commence the “marriage” of homosexual couples.
Spain’s government have now approved a law that will make divorce quicker and an easier process to undertake, and said that later in their four year term it would also make abortions more accessible. This again has infuriated Church traditionalists.
