Spain legalizes Gay Marriage

Spain has become the third country in Europe to legalise gay marriage, with parliament also giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children.
The move by the Socialist government of this traditionally Roman Catholic country yesterday provoked the ire of the church, which has found itself increasingly at odds with the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, since he took power a year ago.

A petition signed by half a million opponents of gay marriage had earlier been handed in to the parliament.

Mr Zapatero's Socialists won the support of several small parties as the bill was passed by 183 votes in favour, 136 against, with six abstentions in the 350-seat lower chamber. "This is a historic day for everybody who believes in equality, justice and rights," said Beatriz Gimeno, president of the country's Federation of Lesbians, Gays and Transexuals.

Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Islamic leaders, however, joined together yesterday to condemn the new law, which looks set to be rubber-stamped by Spain's upper house, the senate, before the summer.

Spain's Roman Catholic bishops have claimed the law brings "a danger of the weakening of the institution of marriage and, at the same time, of proper social order".

The phrase "matrimony shall have the same requisites and effects regardless of whether the persons involved are of the same or different sex" should now be added to Spain's law books. FULL STORY

What's your opinion about this? Anyone going to spain now to get married? Do you think this is progress? I think it's kind of scary when a socialist government is more advanced in civil rights then the United States. What do you think?

I think this is a lovely "fuck you" on the heels of the promotion of the rottweiler to the position of pope. I'm really quite surprised really to hear Spain, I would have thought with all of those Catholics, but what a pleasant surprise.

In similar news, we're undergoing a bit of a battle right now in Canada. Our Prime Minister is having a terrible time over the "sponsorship scandal" and it's looking like his minority government might be brought down in May unless he can get one of the other parties to side with him. (Short story: There's a mess over how money was divied up and spent by the ougoing Prime Minister's government. That's Jean Chretien. Our current PM Paul Martin was the finance minister under JC and he barely squeaked into power in a federal election awith a minority government after JC resigned/retired. A minority government is pretty helpless because if all other parties in the House voted against them on any given issue, they would lose. And if the party in power loses a vote in the House, we have an election.)

So now Steven Harper is threatening to topple the government in the next vote, which will result in an election. And the last thing we want right now is an election. People are pissed over this sponsorship scandal inquiry, so they're all likely to say, "Fuck them, let's vote Conservative." And if we end up with Steven Harper in power, we're about as fucked as our friends south of the border were last year when Dubya got back in because Steven Harper is just a conservative Christian Dubya wearing a red and white beaver coat.

dzinerbear

You know, it sounds like a conservative conspiracy to me. It seems everytime a big liberal jump happens in society, a big scandal happens to make the liberals look bad. ( i.e. Clinton ) Yet the conservatives can fuck everyone over, lie left and right, and seamingly have no consequences. It's all so confusing for me.

In the U.S. the issues with conservative DeLay are good examples of this.

I hope that Canadians stay strong in their liberal views on homosexuality, and other issues. I think Canada is a good, positive, balance to what's going on in the U.S. My .00002cents worth :francais:

The spanish have been talking about this for a while. I have already started to plan my move over there. I lived in the Netherlands (where gay marriage has been legal for a long time) for quite a while, but its just to cold. I'm glad to see spain is the first warm country to make such a move! Go Spain!

Ive always wanted to go to Spain. Spanish men there are so goodlooking and hot

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Originally Posted by CBLCasey

The spanish have been talking about this for a while. I have already started to plan my move over there. I lived in the Netherlands (where gay marriage has been legal for a long time) for quite a while, but its just to cold. I'm glad to see spain is the first warm country to make such a move! Go Spain!

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Ha ha ha you're so funny! A lot of Europeans love to vacation in Spain. Do you speak Spanish? Do you REALLY want to move there? Are you still in the Netherlands?

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Originally Posted by Marc

Spanish men there are so goodlooking and hot

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Damn right they are! Yum :francais:

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Originally Posted by Squirt

You know, it sounds like a conservative conspiracy to me. It seems everytime a big liberal jump happens in society, a big scandal happens to make the liberals look bad. ( i.e. Clinton ) Yet the conservatives can fuck everyone over, lie left and right, and seamingly have no consequences. It's all so confusing for me.

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It is not a confusing conspiracy. (Canadians can correct me on these details) But from watching the CBC apparantly the Canadian government allocated One Hundred Million Dollars to "promote Canadian unity in Quebec" This was in the 1990s when the province almost left the country.

Then the government handed that money to advertising agencies which were friendly to Liberal Party members. Not only did they not create advertising to "promote Canadian unity", the ad agencies turned around and actually gave money to Liberal politicians.

It is one thing for politicians to exercize perks of power, go on junkets. Out and out graft is something else. The Liberal Party is in a world of trouble.

Oh, and typically when any party in Canada comes to power the quickly move to the middle. I see no reason for this to be any different under a conservative government.

Steve

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Originally Posted by desslock

It is not a confusing conspiracy. (Canadians can correct me on these details) But from watching the CBC apparantly the Canadian government allocated One Hundred Million Dollars to "promote Canadian unity in Quebec" This was in the 1990s when the province almost left the country.

Then the government handed that money to advertising agencies which were friendly to Liberal Party members. Not only did they not create advertising to "promote Canadian unity", the ad agencies turned around and actually gave money to Liberal politicians.

It is one thing for politicians to exercize perks of power, go on junkets. Out and out graft is something else. The Liberal Party is in a world of trouble.

Oh, and typically when any party in Canada comes to power the quickly move to the middle. I see no reason for this to be any different under a conservative government.

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All government is corrupt. I don't think just liberals benefited from the money, but maybe more liberals then conservatives, so now they open the whole can of worms. Who knows. None of us really know the truth when it comes to these big scandals. There is always more to the story.

It's all very interesting though and hats off to you Desslock for being so sexy AND so damn knowledgeable about these things. Are you single and looking? :francais:

Yes, I am single and looking.

Perhaps because of the fact that I am also sitting here in Texas watching CBC Canadian Network News on NewsWorld International, that I am single.

:square:

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Originally Posted by desslock

Yes, I am single and looking.

Perhaps because of the fact that I am also sitting here in Texas watching CBC Canadian Network News on NewsWorld International, that I am single.

:square:

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Still damn sexy to me AND you're single! :high

Sounds like you need a visit to Australia :francais:

I am sorry Dresslock but I'll disagree with you on the state of affairs up here in Canada.. to begin with the scandal involves about 250 million, of which about 100 million was supposedly funnelled to Liberal organizers and party officials, not to elected officials...

In addition whether it was 100million or 250million or not I think Martin can survive simply because while they may have pissed away that amount, they also eliminated a 60 odd billion dollar deficit by the Tories.. and no when a government gets elected up here it does not go to the middle.. Brian Mulroney proved that by totally fucking up this country, introducing american style politics that we abhor and which is one more reason why we have consistently had Liberal governments.

As to whether Harper & his ersatz republicans can claim office will have to be seen. We pride our national health, national education and as much as it sucks about the sponsorship scandal, we value that a whole lot more than we do punishing Martin. In addition the scandal was news during the last election as well, so its effect right now is not going to have any greater impact. I think too that if they do force an election, it will backfire because the people do not want one.. a great counter to the scandal. In addition the threat of gutting our national health, the threat of overturning supreme court decisions because they don't agree with Harper's religious views should be enough to counter any backlash on the scandal.. least that is the hope and I believe reality of it all.

If anything it could strengthen the NDP rather than the conservatives which isn't always a bad thing. A lot will depend on the campaign itself... unlike the USA where issues get tossed, our elections are more issue focused and again another reason why the Liberals seem to constantly hold power.

Also it is interesting to note, that while Martin has a minority government, history has shown that a lot does get done by minority governments. Canada brought in national health with a Pearson minority government, it also brought in major criminal reforms and even our own flag... all by a minority Liberal government...

Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but I really don't believe Stephen Harper can serioulyy achieve a majority in the next election... unless Martin totally fails to campaign which I suppose could happen. Harper is not liked and there is a bad taste here from within his own party as well... so again, it isn't a lock. Hell he had a 20 point lead going into the last election and didn't win it.. so at least up here, polls and all the hoopla before mean squat... its the campaign that counts... and so we'll see.

just my view point from the frozen tundra of canuck land.

Ian

It's not true that political parties move to the middle. The Progressive Conservatives under Mike Harris in Ontario were far from middle. Maybe they were middle if you were in business, but if you were gay, were on welfare, were a teacher, worked in health care, or rented an apartment, they were hardly "middle."

In Alberta, Ralph Klein's PC government is not middle either.

And just in case you're going to pull out the "they're provincial not federal" argument, I don't think Brian Mulroney was "middle" either. He was pro-business, anti-gay, and he was bobbing on Reagan's cock for a good party of his term. Funny though how the what goes around comes around thing works: Mulroney's eldest son is an entertainment reporter on television and is the host of Canadian Idol. "Look at me, daddy, I'm displaying my homosexuality all over television even though I'm not really gay." Oh his lawyer daddy must be so proud.

dzinerbear

Yes, minority governments can be good things because no one party (and there are four major ones in Canada) has the power to do anything on its own. To survive a vote on no confidence the Liberals must cooperate with at least one of the other parties and in this case it looks like it will be the NDP, which are more socialist in idealogy. So a minority government can be a good thing because the government can not run amok rubber stamping insane legislation.

cheers
dzinerbear

I'm getting confused as my mind keeps wondering to naked gay men playing ice hockey with hairy legged lesbians in skirts cheering them on the sidelines. I think I've had to much to drink :francais:

Wow! :eek:

So who's next?

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Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

Maybe they were middle if you were in business, but if you were gay, were on welfare, were a teacher, worked in health care, or rented an apartment, they were hardly "middle."

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Canadians - I certainly defer to you guys about the corrections.

However, just to point out it is weird for many of us in the US to hear you complain about Canada under any main party government being rabidly anti-gay.

This sparked my interest enough to search Google on the topic of when Canada lifted its ban on gays serving opening in the military. Canada lifted its ban during Mulrooney's conservative government in 1992.

To outside observers, this is a prime example showing how the ruling party in Canada moves in the middle, particularly since that specific welcome change is cited as one of the country's prime examples of fair and equal treatment toward gays and lesbians.

Steve

Well... let me go to to Bush... may be we are next... who know? :francais:

Dresslock, the ban may indeed have been lifted by the Mulroney government, but it was done so out of potential legal ramifications. In addition you also have to comprehend that the Conservatives then are vastly different than the one's we have today. To begin with this party is a coalition of the ultra conservative party formerly known as the Alliance Party formerly the Reform Party... their past leaders include people who openly condemn gay's as being evil along with Jews... both Stockwell Day and Preston Manning have refered to those groups as the devil's spawn... Stephen Harper haa said he wants to make homosexuality criminal.. that is not moving anywhere to the middle.

He himself has made some stupid ass similiar remarks and some of his 'alliance' members have which has angered the amalgamated conservative members so their is also disunity within his own party. Unfortunately the old time members are few in numbers but it is a potential weak spot.

In addition, our court system is a lot different and technically speaking no government can refuse an order by the Queen... who in fact is our head of state... the military does not take its orders from the Prime Minister, but in legal terms from the Queen...

Until Mulroney your statement that all parties move to the middle might have held some validity, but it has long since changed to where the current Conservatives are considered extremely right wing. There is also a fundamental difference too, as even in the Mulroney era the conservatives didn't want to end national health, national education, and other national programs. Under Mulroney, the same government who by one act you claim went to middle of the road, also attempted to dismantle health care, attempted to separate the country by removing the centralist style of government we have, and which is what led to its ultimate downfall.

The whole scandal wouldn't have occurred if Mulroney hadn't fired up the separatists in Quebec by attempting to offer them sovereignty..

I think you are going to find that when the next federal election comes, that the issues aren't going to be the scandal but the idealogiical differences that come about. That is generally what our elections tend to do, bring out the issues and each time a political party up here has made things personal, which by the way has 99% of the time been the conservative party, they get their asses kicked unlike what happens in the USA.

Thanks for clearing that up, Ian, you obviously know your Canadian history better than I do.

Further to your points, I wanted to hit home the fact that Brian Mulroney was the leader of the Progressive Conversative party, which is a different animal that the Reform Party, which was an ultra conservative western party. In their beginnings the even talked about ghetooizing HIV-positive people. The party's "founder" and first leader was Preston Manning. As the party tried to get broader appealer and as their leader started losing popularity, they replaced him and changed eventually changed the party's name to the Alliance Party.

Later, the Alliance Party tried to move more towards center, but that was making them too much like the Progressive Convervatives. The PCs and the Alliance parties merged and elected a new leader Steven Harper, and they're now called: Conservative Party of Canada. So even though they have a name that is closer to the Progressive Conservative party, they are still largely made of old Alliance/Reform Party members. Most of the PC party was obliterated with Liberal Jean Chretien came to power over a decade ago.

Cheers
dzinerbear