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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:20
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quote:
Spain Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
By RENWICK McLEAN
Published: June 30, 2005
MADRID, June 30 - The Spanish Parliament gave final approval today to a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, making Spain only the second nation to eliminate all legal distinctions between same-sex and heterosexual unions, according to supporters of the bill.
The measure, passed by a vote of 187 to 147, establishes that couples will have the same rights, including the freedom to marry and to adopt children, regardless of gender.
"Today, Spanish society is responding to a group of people who have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, their dignity offended, their identity denied and their freedom restricted," Prime Minister José Luis Rodíguez Zapatero told Parliament.
Spain is the fourth country to legalize gay marriage, after Canada, Holland and Belgium.
But only Canada's law, which was extended nationwide by Parliament this week, contains language as liberal as Spain's, according to gay marriage advocates.
The Spanish measure simply adds one sentence to existing law: "Marriage will have the same requirements and results when the two people entering into the contract are of the same sex or of different sexes."
The laws in Holland and Belgium, by contrast, create a separate category of rights for same-sex couples that fall short of full equality on issues like adoption, these advocates say.
"Spain is talking about total equality," said Kursad Kahramanoglu, the secretary general of the International Lesbian and Gay Association. "The only other place in the world where this has actually happened is Canada."
The Canadian House of Commons voted Tuesday on its measure to change the traditional definition of marriage, and once the Senate formally approves it, gay marriage will be legal throughout the land.
Today's vote in Spain had been widely expected, since the bill had already been approved convincingly in a preliminary vote in April.
The bill then went to the Senate, where it was rejected in a non-binding vote, before going back to the lower house for today's final approval.
Although it had no practical effect, the Senate vote indicated the sharp opposition to the bill that has emerged in Spanish society, particularly among religious conservatives.
Some two weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of people marched through downtown Madrid in protest against the bill, saying it was an assault on the institution of marriage.
The mayor of Valladolid, Francisco Javier León de la Riva, has said that he will not carry out the new law, and Catholic leaders have called on government officials to become conscientious objectors and to refuse to participate in any events involving the marriage of homosexual couples.
Shortly after the preliminary vote in April, the archbishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Ricard María Carlés Gordó, , compared government workers opposing the law but agreeing to carry it out to the Nazis at Auschwitz, who "believed that they had to obey the laws of the Nazi government before their own conscience."
Despite the intensity of the opposition, polls show that most Spaniards, between 55 and 65 percent, support gay marriage. Even many of those who oppose the bill passed today say they agree with allowing same-sex couples to marry but feel they should not be able to adopt children.
The law will go into effect immediately after it is published in Parliament's official bulletin, which is expected to occur within a couple of days. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/i...d-spain.html?hp
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:20
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The terrorist have won!
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:20
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The Lord commands them to become one flesh, procrate and get government benefits. There is no other reason.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:20
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quote:
Gay marriage says that it is the same thing for a man to be married to a man, as it is for a man to be married to a woman. One of the assumptions behind this is that men and women are fundamentally the same. If you don't believe this to be true, and see men and women as being different from each other, then gay marriage is going to act contrary to this position.
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No, your assumption here is that legit marriage requires the two parties to be the same, but marriage itself is relevant only to the capacity to have a loving relationship, so in order for you to make your argument you have to presume that gay love is inherently inferior to heterosexual love.
quote:
I think it does effect marriages between a man and a women, to see both the man and the woman as precisely the same, especially, if they are really different, and need to be understood as such.
Does this make any sense at all to you?
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Pretty much the only difference operative to your argument is the difference between an anus and a vagina.
"To have and to hold..." 
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Bill3000
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of Soloralism
Jul 1999
time: 00:20
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quote:
Originally posted by Atahualpa
Seriously? What's the point in getting married?
It makes no sense to me. |
Personally, I'd say tradition more than anything, as well as companionship, as well as the obvious reasoning of procreation. (you know, meaning of life and all is to survive the species) Companionship obviously is the most important one, at least since the beginning of the 20th century when marriage became an act of love through the invention of the heterosexual, which was not its purpose earlier on, which was more akin to security, I believe, or something.
But times change, and marriage became an act of love, people started to not have kids/have fewer kids, both parents worked for both financial reasons and social change. Thus, today it is mostly tradition and companionship, rather than procreation. Plus, men get to leave their name in family lines when genetically it is just the opposite, and men are biologically the weaker sex. 
Ignoring the legal benefits/penalties, of course.
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30-06-2005 20:08
-- Maybe Ben K could explain it to me 
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