Church State clash over gay marriage in Argentina: The Church of England Newspaper, July 30, 2010, p 5. August 2, 2010
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue, La Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America.trackback
Bishop Gregory Venables
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Argentina has become the first Latin American national to recognize gay marriage.
Over the vigorous protests of Catholic and Protestant leaders, the Argentine Senate on July 15 passed a gay marriage law endorsed by President Cristina Fernández. By a vote of 33 to 27 with three abstentions, the Senate passed the gay marriage bill following 15 hours of contentious debate.
“I am very satisfied. It has been a positive vote,” said President Fernández upon hearing of the vote while on a state visit to China.
While Protestant leaders had opposed the bill, the fight over gay marriage had pitted the Fernández government against the country’s influential Catholic Church in a political battle that analysts note had more to do with anti-clericalism than with gay rights.
In the run up to the vote Argentina’s Synod of Catholic Bishops had warned “this is not a private matter or a matter of religious choice, this is a reality rooted in the very nature of humanity, which is male and female.”
The Archbishop of Argentina, Cardinal Jorge Bergogolio before the vote said “this is no mere legislative bill. It is a move by the father of lies to confuse and deceive the children of God.”
President Fernández responded saying the Cardinal’s statement was “really reminiscent of the times of the Inquisition,” and argued that the proposed law “recognizes a pre-existent reality” and “the rights of minorities.”
The night before the vote, Catholic and Evangelical leaders organized a march upon the Congress building in Buenos Aires. Over 60,000 protesters waived orange flags and held aloft placards denouncing the bill while a statement released by the march organizers declared, “we won’t vote for politicians who vote for the marriage of homosexuals.”
On June 30 Anglican, Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox leaders testified before the Senate’s legal committee against the proposed law. The Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone and Bishop of Argentina, the Most Rev. Gregory Venables urged legislators to reject the government’s bill. Expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples would shake and divide the nation, he said.
“If you take the Old and New Testaments” it is plain that “God foresaw marriage as being for a man and a woman.” The Biblical text “leaves no possibility of marriage as anything else,” the bishop said, for marriage is the “sign of the union of Christ and his Church.”
“I can only bless what God blesses” (Yo sólo puedo bendecir lo que Dios bendice), Bishop Venables told the Senate, urging them to take head to the views of the “86 per cent of the country that is Christian”, adding that the government had been wrong not to consult with the people before it began its political push for gay marriage.
Political analysts in Argentina note the battle over gay marriage has little to do with the intrinsic issues, but is part of a wider political battle between President Fernández and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, against the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has been sharply critical of the government’s failures to address corruption and poverty. The split with the church was evident on July 9, when President Fernández broke a long-held presidential tradition by missing the Te Deum Mass for Argentina’s Independence Day. The country’s constitution designates Roman Catholicism as the country’s official religion.
“Kirchner’s epic vision of politics and his need to turn every issue into a mortal combat have driven him to seek the defeat of [Cardinal] Bergoglio and the church,” said Joaquin Morales Sola, a columnist at the conservative La Nacion newspaper.
“Kirchner doesn’t care about the gay community,” said opposition leader Elisa Carrio of the Coalicion Civica party. “Kirchner is using the gay-marriage issue to take on Bergoglio,” she said.
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As an Argentine citizen, I am totally ashamed with the decision made by the Congress, in just few weeks, destroying the institution of matrimony. Matrimony comes from Latin “Mater”, so where is the mother here? Or the Pater, father, nowhere quite obviously, what kind of maternal or paternal figure will have the adopted children. Why they didn’t follow the examples of most European countries and states of the USA and the whole world. I am not against that a homosexual or lesbian couple may have some rights to inherit their couple’s fortune, to receive a pension, or not to be discriminated just because of their choice of life. Quite recently, the European Court of Human Rights in the case Schalk and Kopf vs. Austria decided that the European Convention of Human Rights and most international treaties do not oblige states to ensure “the right to marry to homosexual couples”.
Furthermore the Inter American Convention of Children’s rights expressly decided that any child has the right to have a mother and a father. I don’t need to explain that a mother is a woman and the father a man. But there is something else in what occurred yesterday in Buenos Aires. The Kirchner government is in an open struggle with not only the Catholic Church, which is the faith of the vast majority of Argentineans, but from other Christian denominations. All of them, with the support of the vast majority of the Jewish community will challenge this horrendous law in courts.
It is totally against our Constitution and judgements from our own Supreme Court in the past, we hope that this Court will not change the precedents, if not we have the Inter American Court of Justice or Human Rights and other further instances. We have a country where a third of our population is under the line of poverty, with tremendous problems in the public health sector (which was a model for more than a century), when increasing numbers of young people are. deserting schools, because they cannot afford to study, but they don’t find a job, In such so-called wealthy country as Argentina, we have thousands of people dying of hunger and deceases, which we thought had disappeared, is ridiculous to emphasize a situation, which reaches only some few thousand people in the whole country. It is a scandal that the priority of this government with the complicity of a hypocrite opp0sition, consider much more important “same sex marriage”, than all the tremendous and real problems that we are facing in our country. Thanks God, this corrupted and immoral government, will have an end next year, and you can take if for granted that this legislation will be abrogated in case that decent people will be elected to office.
I am not here to state who is going to hell or who is righteous or not. I am here to ask this question: why are homosexuals so bent on calling what they want “marriage”? First, from its origin, marriage does not reflect the model that the homosexual community is presenting—-the same gender being joined as life partners. Second, the concept of “marriage” is a biblical endeavor whose standard is set with the first man and woman.
Marriage is meant to reflect the relationship between GOD and his creation; displaying the love, provision and interaction that He communicates along with man’s role as expected to show gratitude as well as reciprocating love and interaction is only part of what’s to be mirrored. Also, in a marriage, commonly, it is rightfully assumed that a couple will reproduce or “procreate” which furthers this reflection of the marriage mirroring GOD’s dealings with man whereas GOD “creates”. Even in a case where a man and a woman are joined and cannot (whether the problem lies in the man or the woman physically) procreate it at least has the appearance of the possibility of procreation.
The pretentious petition for “same sex marriage” is an attempt to make a mockery of faith and of its essence is to Edge God Out! Marriage holds for mankind a reminder that GOD is a Great Creator, in fact, the Creator of all things. Every time a child is born it is a reminder of the awesomeness of creation. Life is first in the man delivered to the woman for her to carry for a hopeful 9 months. This is why we call GOD a “He”, not because He has gender in His Spirit form but because He “is the first cause of a thing”. A homosexual couple cannot represent this possibility which is why it would be redefining “marriage” to ultimately become something that is not Marriage at all.
It is evident to me that the attempt of the homosexual community is indeed pretentious. I firmly believe that those for “same sex marriage” have set out to “DESTIGMATIZE” homosexuality and are on a quest to normalize its lifestyle. In doing this they are doing to others what they don’t appreciate having done to them; they are disregarding the faith, convictions and a wholesome societal paradigm for a selfish behavioral cause AS homosexuality is a BEHAVIOR and not an ETHNICITY. Though I am not for same sex unions at all, I ask, why not call it something else if these attempts to legalize such unions have no ulterior motives?
We must continue to argue from a faith perspective but we need to become more wise than “blunt”. Simply saying “Adam & Eve and not Adam & Steve” doesn’t cut it anymore.
We must take the position to meanings and definitions.
Marriage by definition means to take two separate and complimenting components and merging or blending them. Testosterone and testosterone don’t merge neither do they compliment one another. A lamp isn’t complimented by a lamp but by a bulb. A plug isn’t complimented by a plug but by a socket outlet. To compliment something is to bring something to the table that the first component does not possess of its own; this is illustrated when you try to connect “north and north” or “south and south” poles of a magnet-it doesn’t work!
If you were covered with necklaces and you added another necklace there would be no complimenting effect. But if you have on a plain black turtleneck sweater and you add something ornamental (something different) then you have complimented the sweater, right?
What the homosexual community is purposing is to change the very “generic” definition of marriage whether from a biblical or none biblical perspective. So then, it cannot [from a terminological standpoint] be consider marriage at all by reason of the noncomplimenting components that are attempted to be joined.
P.S. Let’s stop calling it “Gay” which means Happy and call it as it is “homosexuality”.
Find Article at this link: http://www.nwitimes.com/lifestyles/article_823bcc05-4d11-5377-8331-bc4246448c8b.html