The Church has condemned a new LGBT rights law which requires media and educational establishments, including Catholic schools, to promote “respect for sexual diversity”.
“We urge all society, and especially Christian people, not to remain passive before the danger posed by this law’s postulates,” said the Assembly of Bishops of Southern Spain, which includes the dioceses of Seville, Granada and Cordoba.
“Although it appears to pursue the good end of honouring all people, it also assumes the whole linguistic fabric of gender ideology, which aims to eliminate the concepts of male and female, dismantle corporal identity and deconstruct the human body, marriage and family.”
The statement was issued as the “Law guaranteeing the rights, equal treatment and non-discrimination of LGBT people” came into force in Spain’s autonomous region of Andalusia. The country’s other 16 regions are expected to follow suit in the coming months. The Church in Andalusia said it respects “all people, regardless of sexual orientation”, but considered it unjust that “an anthropology should be imposed in the name of the common good”, which in reality “compromises freedom of thought, conscience, education and teaching, as well as religious freedom”.
The LGBT law, drawn up by Spain's left-wing Podemos party, bans discrimination based on “expressions of gender and sexual characteristics”, and requires the removal of public library books which fail to recognise social equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transgender and intersex citizens. It also allows hormonal blocking treatment for “trans-gender minors” and imposes fines of up to 120,000 Euros for institutions failing to recognise gender diversity.
(Pic: July 8, 2017 - Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain - Thousands of revellers dance in the street while they take part in the 9th Pride Barcelona Parade 2017 Credit Image: © Matthias Oesterle via ZUMA Wire/PA)
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