BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, JULY 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- As Argentina’s Congress is set to vote today on the legalization of same-sex “marriage,” a march Tuesday reflected opposition to the measure from tens of thousands of citizens.
Bearing the slogan “We Want a Mommy and Daddy for Our Children,” close to 200,000 marchers participated in the demonstration, the AICA news agency reported. That was double the number expected by organizers.
Other Argentine cities joined the initiative. In Cordoba, more than 10,000 citizens marched in favor of marriage and the family, led by Archbishop Carlos Ñáñez. A similar event took place in the shrine of the Virgin of Irati, located in the province of Corrientes. Other provinces where the same events took place were Chaco, Catamarca, Salta, Mendoza, Formosa and San Juan.
“The union between man and woman is the natural way for procreation,” Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, affirmed in a message read at the scene of the march. “If this law is approved, it would mean a real and grave anthropological regression.”
Changing truth?
A marchers’ manifesto read at the demonstration affirmed that a cultural movement cannot ignore the “essential truth” that all human beings are “genetically determined as women or men and, biologically, to procreate we need the union of a masculine and a feminine gamete.”
The statement also declared the marchers’ advocacy for children waiting to be adopted so that they are guaranteed families formed by a man and a woman. The demonstrators called on the government to accelerate the adoption process so that “the thousands of abandoned children and the thousands of married couples who want to give them a family with love won’t have to suffer years of waiting and the bureaucratic calvary that leads them to despair.”
Marchers also noted their support of democratic freedom, saying this cannot be reduced to a periodic vote, while “some want to promote abominable laws without consulting us and without being concerned about the damage they do to the basic values of our homeland.” Democracy must be “participatory, where our opinion is always present in the treatment of crucial topics such as this one.”
Legislation recognizing same-sex “marriage” has already been approved by the lower house of Congress and has the support of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
If the Senate votes in favor today, Argentina will be the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex “marriage.”
