May 13, 2005  |  By: DYANA BAGBY  | COMMENTS     

The Roman Catholic Church’s decision to try and sway Spanish officials against performing gay marriages as part of a conscientious objection campaign is simply “religion gone bad,” according to one gay religious activist.

The Vatican’s stance against legalizing gay marriage in Spain comes just weeks after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, dubbed “God’s rottweiller,” served more than 20 years under Pope John Paul II as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office once known as the Holy Inquisition.

During that tenure, Ratzinger authored some of the Vatican’s most anti-gay rhetoric, including a 1986 Vatican letter calling homosexuality “an intrinsic moral evil” and a 2003 battle plan instructing Catholic politicians to oppose gay marriage and gay adoptions.

“There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,” Ratzinger wrote in the document, titled “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons.”

“Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law,” he wrote.

With Spain on track to become the third country in the world to legalize full marriage rights for same-sex couples, Pope Benedict XVI faces the issue again on the heels of his installation to the highest seat of the church that boasts one billion members.

The Netherlands legalized gay marriage in 2001 and Belgium in 2002.

The lower house of the Spanish Parliament approved the same-sex marriage bill April 21 and the Senate is expected to pass it this month. The bill also gives gay couples the right to adopt.

‘Moral violence’ against children
Soon after last month’s vote, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, condemned the law, saying gay marriage “changed and falsified the very definition of marriage.”

Trujillo, of Colombia, also told the Vatican news agency Fides that adoption of children by same-sex couples was “moral violence” against children and jeopardized their personality and stability, according to a Reuters report.

“People say these children adopted by same-sex couples are very happy. Maybe, when they are 1 or 2 years old. But when they are able to think for themselves, when they grow up, what a tragedy when they have to say, ‘My parents are two men, or two women’. Their personality, their stability is put at risk,” Trujillo said, according to Reuters.

Mel White, co-founder of the spiritual gay rights group Soulforce, blasted the Vatican for taking such a stance on an issue that has nothing to do with the Catholic Church.

“There are so many ironies here. Here you have a church with a billion members getting involved in a civil marriage issue — that’s religion gone bad,” he said.
Trujillo called on Spanish officials to defy the law, according to the May 2 Reuters article.

“Christians, even if they are state employees, are asked to become conscientious objectors because the laws we are speaking of are deeply offensive to morality,” he said.

‘Dark Ages mentality’?
Spain has a population of about 41 million, with 94 percent identifying themselves as Catholic.

But while the Catholic Church has been a fierce force in shaping the way Spain’s population thinks on political and moral issues in the past, it has lost much of its power in recent years as many Spanish Catholics disagree with the church on such issues as birth control, abortion, women’s roles in the church and homosexuality.

On Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, leader of the Socialist party, defended his country’s gay marriage bill in what some media outlets called a “veiled attempt” to disavow the Vatican.

“I will never understand those who proclaim love as the foundation of life, while denying so radically protection, understanding and affection to our neighbors, our friends, our relatives, our colleagues,” Zapatero told Parliament in a state of the nation address, according to the Associated Press.

“What kind of love is this that excludes those who experience their sexuality in a different way?” Zapatero said.

Sam Sinnett, president of the gay Catholic organization Dignity USA, agreed with Zapatero’s comments and said it is not the people supporting Spain’s public policy who have it wrong, but rather the church’s hierarchy, which is out of step with the ...