One Big Step for Global Civil Liberties, One Giant Leap for Mankind

I would personally like to thank CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman for bringing the world this wonderful story:

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Two men -- a psychiatrist and a store window decorator -- have tied the knot in a Madrid suburb, the first gay couple to marry in Spain since the country's parliament passed a law allowing such unions last month.

Monday's civil ceremony, which lasted 10 minutes, was attended by a few family members and friends of the couple -- as well as several dozen representatives of the media -- in the city council room in the suburb of Tres Cantos. Hooray for Tres Cantos! Kind of makes me proud to say I work there.

Pedro Zerolo, a gay rights activist and member of the country's ruling Socialist Party, confirmed it was the first marriage between people of the same sex in Spain and called it "a triumph of common sense and the state of law."

Spain's Roman Catholic Church staunchly opposes the new law.
The men said they have been a couple for 30 years. The psychiatrist, Carlos Baturin German, and the store window decorator, Emilio Menendez Menendez, replied affirmatively when the Tres Cantos town councilman officiating the ceremony, Jose Luis Martinez, asked if they wanted to marry each other.

"I declare you -- united in matrimony," the councilman then pronounced, dispensing with the traditional "husband and wife" formula.

The newlyweds then hugged each other, did not publicly kiss, and exchanged rings. They declined to give their ages.

The Netherlands and Belgium also allow same-sex marriage, but Zerolo said the legal terminology in Spain's new law is more progressive than in those countries. It also goes beyond the same-sex marriage law in effect in some parts of Canada, because the Spanish legislation equates fully, without any separation or distinctions, same-sex marriage to heterosexual marriage.

Parliament approved the controversial law on a 187-to-147 vote on June 30, and the measure went into effect on July 3. Since then, numerous same-sex couples have gone to city halls and civil registries across Spain to get the required paperwork to hold a civil wedding.

The newlyweds in Tres Cantos said it had not been their intention to hold the first same-sex marriage in Spain -- on the eighth day since the law took effect -- but it just worked out that way, given the marriage docket schedule in the middle-class suburb north of Madrid, after their application form had been completed.

"We're normal people who love each other and want to be happy," Menendez said afterward outside of the Tres Cantos town hall.

"The (Catholic) bishops have lost an opportunity to be shepherds," he added, saying the church could have tried to mend fences by reserving church weddings for heterosexual couples while accepting civil marriages for gays.

But thousands of Spaniards demonstrated in central Madrid last month just before the law was finally approved, and last week, leaders of the Spanish church sharply criticized the law, saying it would create "confusion" and went against "human reason." I bore witness to this shameful event. Please see my report on it at the end of this article.

The new law is also seen as a challenge for Pope Benedict XVI, given the Vatican's strong stance in favor of heterosexual marriage only.

The Socialist government estimates there are 4 million homosexuals in Spain, nearly 10 percent of the population.

Under the new law, gay couples could also adopt children, but the first gay couple to wed said they weren't interested in adoption.

Polls show about 60 percent of Spaniards are in favor of same-sex marriage.
Some church leaders have called on local officials not to perform same-sex marriages. Tres Cantos is ruled locally by the conservative Popular Party, which at the national level voted against the gay marriage law in parliament.

But the councilman officiating the first same-sex marriage was from the Communist-led United Left coalition, which has supported the law.

Source: CNN.com, 07/11/05

First I would like to say that I love the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the United Left (Izquierda Unida) for promoting progress and civil liberty in Spain. Take that, Bush, you homophobic old panzy! Heehee! The leftists in this country have managed to screw over Bush in two ways, withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq and shrugging off his ideals about marriage, and for that I am eternally greatful.

However, as I was devasted to learn, while the progressives and leftists may be in the majority, there are still a lot of backward conservatives in this country. I´d known that the Catholic Church and the Spanish Forum for Family were planning to demonstrate against the passage of the law legalizing same sex marriages, but I also knew that the majority of Spaniards, especially young Spaniards, were pro-gay marriages. I thought the demonstration would be small, but boy was I wrong. I was sitting at a neighborhood bar when I saw arial shots of the demonstration happening just blocks away from where I was sitting. I couldn´t believe it. How could so many people be so narrow-minded? How could so many people be so willing to deny other´s their god given right to love and be together? I was sickened. As I walked home I saw people walking through my neighborhood with their children and carrying signs that said, "Marriage = Man + Woman"

Now everyone´s got the right to walk around wearing their ideals on their sleaves, especially if they´re coming from a demonstration, but what made this particular display so disgusting was that they were in my neighborhood, Chueca, Madrid´s gay district. The absolute lack of respect of these self-righteous men and women angered me to the core. If they want to lock themselves up in their suburban homes and teach their kids good Christian values and never interact with a gay person ever, that´s fine by me, the rest of us are better off without them. But when they have the audacity to come into my neighborhood preaching that their might is right, they are doing nothing more than declaring themselves superior to other human beings, which is not only politically incorrect, but puts them right up there with racists and sexists and everyone else who makes this world unlivable.

A week or two after the anti-gay marriage demonstration, there was a demonstration against world hunger. Now there´s something to worry about. After all, the majority of the world lives in abject poverty. But did the Spanish Forum for the Family decide to lend their support to that cause? No. How about the Church? Come on, the Catholic Church had to be there, they´re servants of God, they´re supposed to help the meek and less fortunate. Um, well I guess the Catholic Church deams homosexuality a far greater threat than famine and disease. Am I the only one here that sees some serious prioritization issues?

Oh well, screw them all, gays and lesbians are getting married, and that´s all that matters! Here´s to the new Spanish family. May it be fruitful and forever loving!