Spain Urged to Resist Same-Sex "Marriage"

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain, AUG. 22, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Archbishop Fernando Sebastian of Pamplona says that the Catholic Church «is not opposed to the recognition of certain civil rights for certain types of unions, but it will never agree to their comparison with marriage.»

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During a press conference Aug. 7 in Santiago de Compostela, the archbishop said «the whole of Spanish society should rebel against the draft law on homosexual marriage,» as it «attacks the very basis of social coexistence, which is founded on the family.»

«The Parliament, with all its civil powers, cannot change human nature, which established the sexual complementarity between man and woman for the purpose of procreation,» he added.

Archbishop Sebastian referred also to the question of the state’s laicism, and said that «it is obvious that there is a campaign which intends to impose a secular state and society.»

According to the archbishop, «that is not the state reflected in our Constitution, which considers religion as something good that must be protected, at the level of other human dimensions. A secularist state ends up by being a totalitarian state, because it does not recognize one of the ingredients of freedom, which is religious liberty.»

He added: «The model of the a-confessional state was the one the episcopal conference defended in the time of Franco, when it was not so easy to speak about this issue.»

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