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SPAIN
- A
Spanish homosexual organization is suing the country's
Roman Catholic primate for suggesting that same-sex marriages
would bring down the country's social security system.
The Popular Gay Platform, an association of politically
conservative homosexuals, filed the action a day after
a sermon about the Holy Family by Cardinal Antonio Maria
Rouco Varela at Madrid's Almudena Cathedral.
The
association's president, Carlos Biendicho, told El Mundo
newspaper that the primate's words constitute "slander
and an incitement to discrimination" on the basis
of sexual orientation.
As
in the United States, gays in Spain are demanding the
right to be legally married and have access to the attendant
benefits.
Spain's
Socialist Party and other opposition factions are in favor
of same-sex marriage. But it has been rejected by Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose conservative Popular
Party appeals to many conservative Catholics and holds
an absolute majority in Parliament.
In
his sermon, Rouco Varela said that if families based on
marriage between a man and a woman are put on an equal
footing with "all types of unions, including those
by nature unable to have children, it will result in the
systematic destruction of the social security system."
He
suggested same-sex couples would overburden the state
pension system by drawing retirement benefits without
having had children whose incomes would keep the system
going.
Rouco
Varela's comments come as Spain and other European countries
face collapse of their state pension systems mainly because
of low birthrates.
The
primate argued that it is "the fecund love of the
Christian family" that is best for the survival of
the welfare system, even though large families are rejected
as a thing of the past by many young Spaniards.
"How
many large families have experienced criticism from the
very same people who will depend in their time of sickness
and old age on the generous contributions of the children
of these families to the social security system?"
the cleric said.
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