Sunday, December 26, 2004
SPANISH BISHOPS SPEAK UNEQUIVOCALLY ON HOMOSEXUALITY
The bishops published on Sunday a statement entitled "Man and Woman Created He Them", charging that "homosexual tendencies, even if not a sin, must be considered objectively as troubling."
"One cannot choose between man and woman," the bishops said, adding that "sexual difference is given to us" and the concept of "sexual orientation" is "erroneous."
"Homosexual behaviour is always ethically reprehensible even if individual culpability must be judged with prudence," the statement said, calling such behaviour "intrinsically bad from the moral point of view."
Marriage is "always and solely the union of a man and a woman," the bishops said. "Two people of the same sex have no right to contract a marriage. The state, for its part, cannot recognise this right which does not exist, without acting in an arbitrary manner."
The government plans "must be opposed clearly and incisively", the statement said, and the right of adoption by gay couples rejected.
It was not clear to me from the article whether this will put them on a collision course with the Spanish government, or whether a "technicality" would be found to avoid an outright conflict.
