Pope slams gay marriage
2004-09-04 16:34
Vatican City - Pope John Paul II kept up his campaign against gay marriage, saying Saturday that legal guarantees "cannot be applied to unions between persons of the same sex without creating a false understanding of the nature of marriage".
The pope made the remarks in a speech to the new Canadian Ambassador to the Holy See, Donald Smith.
The text of the speech was released by the Vatican.
"The institution of marriage necessarily entails the complementarity of husbands and wives who participate in God's creative activity through the raising of children," said the pontiff.
"Spouses thereby ensure the survival of society and culture, and rightly deserve specific and categorical legal recognition by the State," he added.
"Any attempts to change the meaning of the word 'spouse' contradict right reason: legal guarantees, analogous to those granted to marriage, cannot be applied to unions between persons of the same sex without creating a false understanding of the nature of marriage."
In past months, the pope urged authorities to stop approving gay marriages, saying that they degrade the true sense of marriage between a man and a woman.
- AP