Argentina's Gay "Marriage" Law and Minorities

By Carmen Elena Villa
 
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, JULY 26, 2010 (Zenit.org).- With Argentina's green light for homosexual "marriage," there are many values and cultural elements at stake, not least of which is the true benefit of minorities.

Argentina approved same-sex "marriage" on July 15, despite a widespread citizen's appeal in opposition of the measure.

ZENIT spoke with lawyer Guillermo Cartasso, director general of the Latin Foundation of Culture, president of the ecclesial Fundar movement, and a member of the department for university ministry of the Episcopal Conference of Argentina. He notes the effects of the new law, and why he sees a triumph in the movement that opposed it.

ZENIT: President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner says that now Argentina is a more egalitarian nation than before. Is this true or is it a euphemism to speak of marriage as a right that should be enjoyed by "sexual minorities?"
 
Cartasso: The LGBT's [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] attitude has not been claiming a right but a legislative aim. There is no right if one does not comply with the laws of nature that pre-exist the will of the human being. To approve of marriage between persons of the same sex is to disfigure reality and to ruin children.
 
ZENIT: Why "ruin children"?
 
Cartasso: Because children have the right to grow up in the natural difference of the masculine and the feminine. In marriages of persons of the same sex this is impossible. Moreover, the law obliges that children [adopted by same-sex couples] be registered as child of the "spouses" and this deprives them of the biological identity that every child possesses. International treaties on human rights have been ignored.
 
ZENIT: How can society as a whole be damaged by altering the concept of family?
 
Cartasso: What is being debated are two clear paradigms: one says basically that man is self-sufficient and that everything is a cultural construct. We say, on the other hand, that life is an encounter of nature and culture. One cannot ignore what has been "given" to man, which pre-exists his will. Two persons of the same sex united as spouses are not a family in the light of natural law and this affects the whole of society because it imposes a constructivist vision of life, which is not real.
 
ZENIT: Do you think that to legalize this type of union is really a symbol of vanguardism and modernism?
 
Cartasso: We are in a time of cultural crisis where objective references are lost. "Progre-laicism" presumes to impose a sole model of discourse, culturally totalitarian, where tradition is not admitted -- as if it were an evil when in reality it is the antecedent that suffocates the pride of believing oneself the "beginning" of everything.
 
ZENIT: Several of the media have spoken of the Church as the main opponent to this type of union. Is it only a religious question that is at stake?
 
Cartasso: It is a civil, secular question. Obviously every human being begins from a cosmo-vision. But catholicity has been, in the course of the history of our continent, a builder of institutionality and civilization. To speak against the Church is a prevailing but passing fashion, which will not bring down 2,000 years of goodness.
 
ZENIT: What was the role of the laity in Argentina in opposing this measure?
 
Cartasso: This was the work of Catholic citizens. It's true that the bishops opined with legitimate interest. But it was we, the laity, that brought about this triumph.
 
ZENIT: Why do you consider it a triumph?
 
Cartasso: Because without pressure from the political power, a great and calculated [pressure], this law would not have advanced. This is the real majority among the people and in Congress.
 
ZENIT: What repercussions do you think this law will have in Latin America?
 
Cartasso: In these times of crisis, the absolute disappears and relativism prevails. The more relativist the legislation, the greater will be the lack of focus of our globalized society.

Relativist progre-laicism will attempt to advance through fallacies with policies of this type that do not recognize the traditions that built our continent. Moreover, they will seek funds from the democratic government of the United States and all this constitutes a form of dependence.

[Translation by ZENIT]