Spain

Thus Spoke Zapatero
This is how we came to a law that contradicts common sense, nature, and the history
and progress of Western society. The story of a totalitarian initiative in a rule of law

by Cristina López Schlichting

True, it was contained in the electoral platform, but everyone knows that the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) didn’t even dream of being able to ascend to power. The platform was made starting from and in function of the opposition, gathering together all the dissident social forces. The tragedy of the March 11th attacks, however, turned everything upside down, bringing Zapatero to power. Now, the President speaks of the platform only when it’s convenient… such as the case of the negotiations with the ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna, the Separatist Basque Movement), which obviously wasn’t in the platform. Everyone knows that the powerful gay lobby–to which Zapatero had racked up numerous political debts–is the prime promoter of the new gay revolution. Everyone remembers film director Pedro Almodovar reading the final manifesto in the demonstrations that were later able to overthrow Aznar from power, or the gay personalities in the entertainment industry in Spain who shot videos against the government of the Popular Party.

Shameful manipulation
From this pulpit, a campaign of “sensitization” also began, in which the raising of children in homosexual families is presented as a widespread and healthy social reality (in Spain, adoption by singles is allowed). To sustain all of this from the “scientific” point of view, the Colegio de Psicologos (Official College of Psychologists) in Madrid carried out a study in collaboration with the University of Seville in order to show that children grow up normally even in single-parent families. The study in question, conducted without the least bit of rigor, limited itself to roughly twenty families among the upper middle classes chosen by the gay association. At the same time, North American studies such as those by Bailey or Golobok and Tasker–which demonstrate that homosexuality in children raised in these families shows up in percentile ranges that vary between 9% and 25%–were kept hidden.

The warning
The warning started from the juridical institutions consulted by the government for legal reform. The Council of State, the General Council of the Judiciary, and the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation underlined the unconstitutionality of the text of the reform–because the Spanish constitution expressly defines marriage as a union between man and woman–and considered that the union between homosexuals required a different law than the current one which regulates marriage between men and women since it establishes a different reality. No one listened and, in the end, on April 21st, the majority of Congress approved the proposal which should go into effect this summer. The text was passed despite the deeply divided chamber: 183 votes for, 136 against (from the Popular Party and some Christian Democrats from CIU [the Catalan Party Convergence and Union]), with 6 abstentions.

Political payback
The European countries which, in reality, decided to recognize the juridical effects of homosexual unions followed the French model (a private contract) or the Scandinavian model (the public registration of the couples) in the majority of cases, thus creating a specific tool distinct from marriage. Even in the only two countries which opened marriage to homosexual couples (the Netherlands and Belgium), limits regarding having children and adoption were retained. The government’s position is so extreme that it’s possible to explain it only in terms of political payback. Zapatero wants to project an air of being “progressive” and seems convinced that this maneuver can hide his failures in education, domestic and international politics, the scandal of the negotiations with ETA, and the break in the consensus with the most important opposing party.

A totalitarian act
With things being as they were, many Catholic organizations felt the need for a demonstration, set for June 18th in Madrid. In fact, since gay marriage was presented as the recognition of a right, many people avoided taking a position in order not to hurt the sensibility of some homosexuals. They ask themselves: “Who am I to decide what has value and what doesn’t? Are there not heterosexual couples who make mistakes, or conventional fathers and mothers who mistreat their children? Why couldn’t homosexuals be good educators?”
Such a position does not consider that what is happening is the destruction of marriage. Due to the government’s decision, we Spaniards approach marriage without the least value given to our respective sexual contribution, as if in the configuration of the family, the presence of husband and wife, father and mother, is not important at all. What is presented as a right of homosexuals is a violation of the right of non-homosexuals, given that our unions are no longer recognized for their specificity, which is precisely sexual plurality. The grave consequences of such a decision were not in the least bit taken into consideration and are imposed on a society despite serious doubts regarding them and privy to the possibility of conscientious objection. It is a totalitarian act to claim that, in Spain, the schools may teach what contradicts good sense, nature, and the experience of the entire history of humanity.