Dale Mills
Australia is becoming increasingly isolated in its stance against same-sex marriage as more governments around the world move to ensure equal rights for their citizens.
On July 20, Canada joined the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain in having same-sex marriage legislation. Denmark has same-sex marriage in all but name.
The new federal law in Canada formalised an existing right for same-sex couples to marry; nine of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories have already introduced similar laws. Hundreds of foreigners, including many from the US, have visited Ontario and British Columbia to marry. Those marriages, however, are only recognised by countries that allow same-sex marriage.
Not surprisingly, the Roman Catholic Church, the main Christian denomination in Canada, opposed the new law. A day after the law had been passed the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, asserted that “the distortion of God’s plan for the family continues …[when] homosexual unions have become equal to marriage”.
The Vatican’s influence in Canada is less than in Spain where the church called for a campaign of civil disobedience. On April 21, the Spanish lower house of parliament passed a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry. Polls indicated that 65% of the Spanish public favoured same-sex marriage. Opposition to the laws was spearheaded by the opposition right-wing Popular Party as well as the then newly elected Pope Benedict XVI.
As in Canada, the Vatican’s intervention in Spain was swift. The BBC reported that a senior Vatican official invited Spanish state employees to leave their jobs rather than cooperate with the new legislation.
Cardinal Trujillo, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on the Family, told the Italian daily Corriere de la Sera that
the Church was calling for freedom of conscience and he appealed to the faithful to resist the law. A similar campaign by the Vatican is expected soon as the Spanish government is proposing to reform its abortion laws.
From Green Left Weekly, August 10, 2005.
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