Vatican: No to gay marriages

2003-07-31 16:56

Vatican City - The Vatican rallied Catholics around the world on Thursday to oppose the legalisation of marriages between persons of the same sex, which are already allowed in parts of Europe and North America.

In a strongly-worded document, the Holy See also tasked Catholic politicians with a moral duty to fight laws allowing gay marriages.

The move brought an angry reaction from gay rights groups in Italy, while in the United States, President George W Bush waded into the debate by making it clear he believed "a marriage is between a man and a woman".

Around 15 demonstrators gathered to protest against the document for about an hour in St Peter's Square. They carried a banner declaring: "No Vatican - No Taliban".

Though the 11-page document contains no new doctrine, it intensifies the Church's war on homosexuality, which it labels "a troubling moral and social phenomenon", while staunchly defending traditional marriage as the basis for society.

"There is absolutely no ground for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family," it said.

"Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law.

Legislation different from toleration

"They do not proceed from a genuine effective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

It said governments and civil authorities who moved from tolerance of homosexuality to legalisation of gay unions "need to be reminded that the approval or legalisation of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil."

The document, signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Catholic Church's chief doctrinal enforcer, puts the onus firmly on Catholic politicians to resist changes in legislation which have seen same-sex unions become law in The Netherlands, Belgium and two Canadian provinces.

"The Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral."

In states where such laws were already in place, Catholic politicians are instructed to make a "dutiful attempt to obtain at least the partial repeal of an unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the moment."

Argentina, France and Germany allow homosexual couples to register their partnerships with the civil authorities and benefit from some of the rights of heterosexual married couples.

In largely Catholic Croatia, the parliament adopted earlier this month legislation giving homosexual couples the same rights as those enjoyed by unmarried heterosexual couples living together.

Deviant behaviour

The document also sought to rally the world's one-billion plus ordinary Catholics to fight against the spread of homosexual unions.

"Clear and emphatic opposition is a duty" of Catholics in cases where gay marriages have been legalised, it said, adding that they should withdraw "any kind of formal co-operation" in the enactment or application of laws legalising same-sex unions.

Ratzinger's document, which was approved by Pope John Paul II on March 28 at a session of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, makes clear that homosexuals "must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity".

But it said that legalising same-sex unions or putting them on the same level as traditional marriage "would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity."

"The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself."

In Washington, Bush told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday that the fact that the United States needed to be a welcoming country "does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on an issue such as marriage.

"I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman," added Bush, wading into the debate after religious conservatives warned that a recent US Supreme Court ruling would pave the way for gay and lesbian marriages.

Members of Italy's small Radical Party meanwhile said they would petition the Rome prosecutor's office to take legal action against the Vatican for incitement to violate civil and human rights.

- AFP