Spain At The Forefront Of Gay Rights

by Alicia Fraerman

(IPS) MADRID -- Spain will join the ranks of the first countries in the world to grant homosexual couples the same legal rights as heterosexuals if a new bill approved by the Spanish cabinet Oct. 1 is passed by parliament.

The draft law, which apparently has the necessary votes for approval in the legislature, would go into effect in early 2005, granting equal rights to same-sex couples in areas like marriage, adoption, inheritance, work, alimony and social security coverage.

Once it passes into law, the bill approved by the cabinet of socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will put Spain among the handful of countries and provinces in the world where same-sex marriage is legal, like the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada's three most populous provinces, and Massachusetts.

Although Friday's announcement by Spain's first Vice-President Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega was expected, it triggered an outburst of praise from activists and trade unions, as well as complaints, with the Roman Catholic Church raising the loudest objections.

"This law will grant legal recognition to something that is already a reality," Enriqueta Chicano Javega, president of the Federation of Progressive Women, told IPS. She called those who criticize the government's position "hypocrites," since homosexual unions exist in practice, as do adoptions by gay and lesbian couples.

Although today children are adopted by only one of the members of a same-sex couple, in reality the child is raised by both parents, she noted.

"The question here is to make our laws reflect every aspect of that reality, which already exists in the couple, and between the couple and the adopted child," said Fernández de la Vega.

Beatriz Gomera, president of the Association of Gays and Lesbians, said the daughter she has been raising "in absolute normality" and who has carried her last name for the past seven years will also be formally adopted by her partner when the law is passed.

Fernández de la Vega pointed out in a press conference that "there are already thousands of children in Spain with homosexual parents."

She also said that "more than 50 studies show that children raised by homosexual parents are no different" than those raised by heterosexual couples. "There is no evidence that shows that homosexual fathers or mothers are worse parents or do a worse job raising their children" than heterosexuals.

Polls show that "a majority of people in Spain believe that the well-being of the child, independently of the sexual orientation of the parents, must be the primary concern in adoptions," she added.

But sources with the Catholic Church told IPS that the secretary and spokesman of Spain's bishops conference, Juan Antonio Martinez, is preparing a strategy and actions to send out a "clear, specific message" against homosexual marriage.

The Spanish Family Forum (FEF), which links organizations that defend the traditional conception of marriage and family, has already launched a petition drive to collect the 500,000 signatures needed to introduce a popular initiative in parliament aimed at blocking homosexual marriages.

Last week, when members of the governing Socialist Party (PSOE) said the marriage law was on its way to being modified, Spanish Cardinal Herranz, a member of the secretive rightwing Opus Dei group and president of the Vatican Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, called the new measure "lay fundamentalism" and said it ran counter to the democratic concept of the lay state.

The head of the bishops conference, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco, told journalists Friday that homosexual marriage "does not reflect true marriage."

Asked for their views, PSOE leaders referred this journalist to the speech given by Zapatero when he was sworn in as prime minister on Apr. 15.

On that occasion, Zapatero stated that "Homosexuals and transsexuals deserve the same public consideration as heterosexuals and have the right to freely live the lives that they have chosen.

"As a result we will modify the Civil Code to recognize their equal right to marriage with the resulting effects over inheritance, labour rights and social security protection."

The center-right Popular Party (PP), which governed until April and is now the main opposition force, agrees that civil unions, whether homosexual or heterosexual, should be legalized and regulated, but wants the right to adopt to be specifically left out.

PP spokesman Jose Maria Michavila criticised the cabinet's decision Friday and accused the government of failing to engage in dialogue.

Until a little over a quarter of a century ago, during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), homosexuality was banned by law.

Today, according to a survey carried out in June by the governmental Sociological Research Center (CIS), 68 percent of respondents believe homosexual couples should have the same rights as heterosexuals.

CIS estimates that four million people in Spain, or around 10 percent of the population, are gays or lesbians.

Most political parties, trade unions and civil society organizations support the new draft law.

The Union General de Trabajadores (UGT), one of the two main trade union federations, immediately came out in favor of the bill on Friday.

UGT secretary of youth and social policies, Marta Robledo, said that putting homosexual couples on an equal legal footing as heterosexual couples will be "a major achievement" in terms of guaranteeing the civil rights of Spaniards.