Spain Takes Step Toward Approving Gay Marriage

Thursday, December 30, 2004 1:07:53 PM ET

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain took a major step to becoming the third country to legalise gay marriage when its Socialist government approved a draft law on Thursday to give gay couples rights to marry, divorce and adopt children.

Despite strong criticism from Spain's powerful Catholic church, the cabinet approved a draft text which would give gay couples the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts, including inheritance and pension benefits.

The bill, little changed from an earlier draft in October, will now be sent to parliament where it is expected to pass comfortably. Polls show the proposal enjoys firm support from Spain's increasingly liberal population.

It is part of a raft of measures, including streamlined divorce and embryo research, that the Church is battling, saying they threaten the moral foundations of Spanish society.

http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_national.asp?id=48377

Hopefully, I'll live to see this kind of progress in America.

Cant you hear Lou Sheldon & Jerry Falwell screaming? I can.

while the US, a so-called Christian country, is trying to make it unconstitutional. Just goes to show how much work is yet to be done in this country. Viva, Espana!

They both speak Spanish...dont' they? :-)

Can't you just hear that dialogue.

By the way, for you Spanish speakers or Italian, I'm not sure: What does "il bacio" mean. The kiss perhaps? I see it on a picture of three little children sitting on a step where a little boy and girl are giving each other a kiss and the other little girl has this petulant look on her face as if to say... How dare you? I love this picture as I do most pictues of kids. Never had any of my own, but I've taught a couple thousand of them!

:bounce:

easy, quick translations.

I need to brush up on my Spanish, but it would be nice to live in a progressive society.

They better be careful, Bush may want to invade Spain after this for giving homosexuals too much freedoms.

great! :toast:

Time after time after time, it is always the sex-ridden and obsessed Catholic church opposing same-sex marriage wherever the subject comes up. I see it over and over again. It has been thus as long as I can remember, all the way back to 1975.

We would have had gay marriage in Washington, DC in 1975--30 years ago!!--had it not been for the fluttering robes of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, DC. Arrington Dixon, a heterosexual African-American civil rights lawyer and member of the Judiciary Committee of the DC Council, wrote same-sex marriage/adoption/custody language into a no-fault divorce bill that was approved and all ready to pass the vote in the council--and then BAMM!! Those hypocritical queens at the Archdiocese found out about the bill, their priestly homophobic dresses blew up in a tizzy, and they nixed that same-sex marriage bill in the bud pretty damn quick and we've heard no more of it since.

It is such a relief to me, finally, that a legislating body--Even if it's in Spain and not in the States--did not give into those frauds and homophobes this time, and yet again.

if Iraq, when writing its new constitution, would give gay Iraqis equal rights and sanction gay marriage. Wouldn't that just be a great "up yours" (no pun intended) jab at our US conservo-repukelicans?

basically saying "screw you" to the incompetent deranged Neocons running this country and now this.

These people are awesome!

Some days it's hard because this country is in a temporary backward slide, but what keeps me going is the knowledge that civil rights and the fight for equality ultimately wins. Some battles take longer than others, but I can sleep well at night knowing I'm on the correct side of the issue.

I hadn't realized they were so progressive. :thumbsup:

is Antonio Banderas single?

This country isn't in the 21st Century. We are going backwards into the MIDDLE AGES - in more ways than one.

There is no need to drag it out. It would be far easier for the rightists to defeat it than to repeal it once passed.

throughout the rest of the world, if their vehement objection to gay marriage is actually causing foreign governments to warm to legalizing gay marriage in spite of * and to isolate * even more.

The rest of the western world makes us look more and more backward.

Thanks for setting the good example and doing the right thing, Spaniards!

:thumbsup:

Yo tengo nada pero admiracion para Espana!

"YES, HELLO SAME SEX MATRIMONY! YOU DANCE NO? WITH ADMIRATION FOR SPAIN?"

How'd I do (stop laughing, I'm being silly, and guessing at the same time!)?

:yourock: España