Talk:Same-sex marriage in Spain/Archive 1

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Contents

By February

This article says gay marriages were expected to become law by February but I haven't heard anything about that yet. Does anyone know anything?

When is it legal?

According to the BBC, 'the bill will become law in a month's time'; currently the article says it became law today. Does anyone have an authoritative source on this? Radagast June 30, 2005 12:00 (UTC)

Update- another source: The first marriages of gay couples can begin after the law is published in Spain's official journal, expected as early as 15 days, gay rights activists said.

Radagast June 30, 2005 14:03 (UTC)

Royal Assent?

Does Juan Carlos have to (ceremonially) assent to the bill (as Elizabeth II does in the UK)? (Alphaboi867 30 June 2005 17:23 (UTC))

I belive under the Spanish consititution the king can with-hold Royal Assent and effect a veto, but as time has shown the king did give his Royal Assent to the act. Drachenfyre 00:23, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
According to the Spanish Constitution, all the official tasks performed by the king or queen must be cosigned by the real responsible of it (the President of the Parliament, or of the Government). No provision is made regarding a veto. In fact, the royal sanction of the laws is just symbolic in practice. Something like the King of Beligium resiging for some hours to avoid the Abortion law assent is just inconceivable in the Spanish Constitution.

Your'e going too far and giving Gay people bad press

You have enough rights and this takes it too far. It's overkill and your wasting your time. There is no reason to be married. Give me good resons and I will listen fairly. Try to hold on to what you have. There is no reason to waste time with the Gay Marriage oxymoron. Your're trying too hard. I can't believe you want to force straight children around homosexual sex activities like kissing and holding etc. 95 percent of people are not gay and are repulsed by these things while gay people are not repulsed by non-gay activites. With marrage it would be near impossible to take the child away from the family if they arre repulsed.

No, 95 percent of the population is not repulsed by it, you are--whoever you are. In the article it says that a poll showed that the measure was favored by 66 percent in Spain. Roy 1 July 2005 15:46 (UTC)
This is still Wikipedia and this comment is first of all not in any way regarding the article and second of all if it WERE a comment on the article, it would be a gross violation of NPOV. In short: Take your homophobic BS and away from Wikipedia and go voice your opinion on some messageboard. Robrecht 1 July 2005 22:27 (UTC)

The 'Reaction' section seems a bit one sides doesn't it?

I mean, the entire section talks mostly about people who are AGAINST this measure, despite the fact that the first line states that 66% of the population seems to be in favour.

Is the person who added (to) this section trying to make a one-sided representation of facts?

Maybe. But even in that case, what else is there to say about those in favor of the new law? I'm Spanish and I'm in favor of the new law, but I don't know what else could be said. There has been a lot of criticism against the new law, including at least two demonstrations, but really, those of us in favor of the change can do little more than feel happy about it.--Pecholobo 2 July 2005 14:44 (UTC)

Position of the parties

Something should be said about the position of each of the major parties.

Marriage Numbers

[User: Crumbsucker] keeps removing factual data about total number of marriages in Spain per year, which is, IMHO, relevant to the topic, and essential for verifying the claims from both the politic Zerolo, and the conservative opposition, who weren't critic about gay marriage, but about technical aspects of the law, for example that the urgency in the approval of the law was excessive and unjustified because the few people that would actually benefit from it.

I don't think that showing factual data from one verifiable source clasifies as Original Research, and don't understand why I can't compare data from a full year with data from a part of that year. Instead of removing the data, Crumbsucker should have multiplied the result by 1.5 (data from 9 months). Trying to hide this info would be POV.

I will reinsert the link once again. If someone has a better link with more recent data, (and more focused in the total number of marriages) it would be great. A better way would be to include only the data per year in the article, and the link in a References section. DrJones 14:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Actually, I'm going to rewrite the section and clarify the numbers, because as it is, it is definitely Original Research. You are comparing incomplete data of less than a year to complete data from previous years (that have different numbers) to calculate a percentage, a very flawed method. Instead, you have should give the full numbers of the previous years and let the numbers stand on their own. BTW, the conservative opposition isn't critical of same-sex marriage? Since when? They are challenging it in court, wasting time and money. Crumbsucker 23:44, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
The conservative opposition actually tried to approve a law that allowed same-sex marriages when they were elected on 1996-2000, but the opposition (the socialist party) managed to derail it. Current opposition is (as far as I know) due to technical aspects (undesirable side effects) of the law, which are probably related with the accusations about the law being done in a rush and carelessly. Mariano Rajoy, from the opposition, has stated that he compromises to fix the mess if his party wins the next elections.
I remember that one of the issues that came up was that the only arguments given in favour of same-sex marriages were also applicable to zoophilia, pedophilia and polygamy, which is currently forbidden. Approving the law as is leave the judges without arguments to oppose them. The answer of the government was to reprimand the judges for coming up with the issue. DrJones 22:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if those challenges on court are indeed well funded, but because the ruling party has already approved laws that go against the constitution, I can't trust either side. The statistics given by Zerolo should be treated with scepticism, too, because recently the socialist party (to which he belongs) has been accused by the media of continuously falsificating them.
Just to point that the above paragraph is merely informative (to state my personal concerns about this issue), and doesn't intend to start a discussion about politics and other controversies. DrJones 22:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
By the way, I noticed that the article I linked to claims (near the end of the article) a very different number of same-sex marriages than this article, so I'll try to find a first source for this. DrJones 15:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)



I'd like to make a few comments about the recent posts here:

'The conservative opposition actually tried to approve a law that allowed same-sex marriages when they were elected on 1996-2000, but the opposition (the socialist party) managed to derail it'.

Sorry, this is not entirely true. The opposition submitted a proposition not of law to regularize same-sex unions, and the Popular Party systematically shot it down. The Popular Party made a proposition that left partners and their children wildly unprotected before the law, and that was what was derailed. It wasn't going to 'allow same-sex marriages' by a long shot.

'The statistics given by Zerolo should be treated with scepticism, too, because recently the socialist party (to which he belongs) has been accused by the media of continuously falsificating them'.

You mean COPE radio, which belongs to the Episcopalian Conference. Not even La Razon questioned those figures, and limited themslves to reproduce them (it surprised me too!). So it's just one media questioning those figures, and it wouldn't take a great stretch of imagination to thing they might be the tiny part biased (they belong to the Catholic Church), huh? The only source we have for the number of same sex marriages, like it or not, comes from the government. The media don't have access to the same data as they do. I suggest we limit ourselves to reproduce it. After all, it's an official source. If you find other documented official sources, great. But I doubt it.

No, I mean the media, and I mean "continuously falsificating statistics" in general. There have been a lot of statistics that have been controversial: the level of unemployment (the system of measurement has been changed, and then compared with data taken with other system of measurement), the number of people on manifestations (that has been heavily manipulated, using the same trick that people uses to tell you that every second, a kid starves to death [[1]]), even the difference of salary between men and women ([[2]]). The EGM also manipulates the audience of the radios, which directly repercutes in the ammount of money they can charge for advertisements. Media tell lies, but politicians too.
In particular, about the percentage given by Zerolo, you may take into account that the political weight of minorities rely heavily on the percentage of population they represent, so it's pretty understandable that both Gays and the Catholic Church manipulates them, which is a shame. I just don't believe the 10% Zerolo or ElJueves says, as much as I don't believe the 0.001% ElZapatazo tells. Since you can't prove that you are gay (isn't falsifiable), the most objetive way to find the percentage I found is the number of marriages. DrJones 01:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I've removed this from the article:

'The number of opposite-sex marriages during this period is unknown, but there were 210,155 marriages in 2003 and 216,451 marriages in 2000, suggesting that the percentage of same-sex marriages may be lower.[13]'

What happened in previous years indicates merely a probability of what may happen in this one. Using this as an argument to counter attack the percentage of same sex marriages so far and say the number is lower does not seem a solid argument. It's highly speculative AND those figures are taken for an entire year (the years 2000 and 2003) while same sex marriage in Spain hasn't been legal for a year yet (became legal in July 2005). Those figures cannot be compared. When July 2006 comes by and we have the total figures of same sex marriages for an entire year, THEN we will be able to make comparisons and statements. But not now.

That data was there to give Neutral Point of View to the article. Factual data instead of possibly made-up statistic is preferred, even though the data is from other years. The variance between years is not so big that you can't form an idea of the actual percentage. Comparing data from a year with data from half-a-year can be done just by halving the first number. I wrote that data because it's the only way we have now to measure how accurate are the words of Zerolo. We could always edit it once we have more accurate data, but it's the only data we have right now. I suggest you either to reinsert it, or to remove Zerolo's claim, which doesn't give factual data either. DrJones 01:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Now that we have the final numbers from 1 June 2006 we can state that, not only Zerolo is a liar with zero credibility (which was already known), but also that the percentages have not deviated at all from the data I included six months ago. You cannot fight against reality. Fight against the obfuscation of politics and media instead. If you have hope on this situation becoming better because it was only the first year afterall, you should know that the trend on same-sex marriages is regressive once the initial burst has passed, and it will only give worse numbers. Now, they already knew this when they approved a law to benefit 2500 people (which also was unrequired, because same-sex couples could use a contract instead, marriages are contracts). DrJones 13:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Finally, just wanna add that laws like this one make me proud of being Spanish. There's less inequality in our country now. Cheers! Raystorm 23:16, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Same-sex and man-woman marriages. Are they the same?

I have split this section in two, which was going off-topic. This section is just for polite discussion about the equivalency of homo and hetero marriages (do they have the same purpose, do they work the same, etc.), and about the usefulness of having a global ruling for both, over having specific rules to treat each one separately, which would be best suited if there were differences between them, but would require introducing a different term to designate same-sex marriages. DrJones 13:34, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I, for one, are happy that you can marry, but I'm not very proud of this law. I do think the benefits that are there to solely incentive procreation (as Spain has a very low birth rate) shouldn't be applied to same-sex marriages, which cannot be done because they have the same denomination. This is not discrimination, it's just that these marriages don't function that way. I'm okay with other benefits like legal protection and other technicalities, though. DrJones 01:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

DrJones please next time you answer me a post, don't insert your comments in my previous post, it's kinda confusing. :) Let's see, I agree with you about 'factual data is prefered instead of possibly made-up statistic'. Of course it is. The thing is, I do not believe that the data I removed is factual. It can't be until July 2006. And you can't just halve the first number, it doesn't work that way. Social conditions cannot be accurately predicted like that. One of the reasons I wanna wait until July 2006 is fairly simple: more people get married in summer. We have no reason to believe this won't be true for gay people. Reasons of holidays, better weather for a ceremony (not religious, you understand), family'll be able to attend....have to be taken into account. I merely see as guesswork (for now) the claim I removed. This is the first time in the history of Spain that gay marriages are allowed. We can't accurately predict what'll happen this year. I do understand you wanting to give a counterbalance to Zerolo's claims, but I don't think that actual claim is a valid one that should be in the article.
By the way, I find it curious that you think I must be gay because I'm happy about this law. And I think that the benefits you spoke about should be applied. Lesbian women can (and do, in fact) have children. What about them? Cheers! Raystorm 13:33, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
No, I assumed you were gay because I think most people interested in this article is homosexual. Nevertheless, I apologize if you are not gay. Now, about the article: I can wait until July arrives to add that info to the article, though I still don't understand why is not reasonable to include the total number of marriages from previous years, but it is to include a claim from the lobby that offered no data to back it up. It takes away objectivity from the article.
Second, lesbian women do have children, but that's not product of the marriage. People with children may marry, too, and that doesn't mean these are result of the marriage. As I see it, in that example, one of the lesbians is helping raising the child of the other. As my aunt doesn't have benefits for raising the son of my cousin, I don't see why they should have benefits. They can have benefits for having children, just not for being married (and your point still doesn't justify why gay marriages should have those benefits). DrJones 22:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
*Grin* Having an interest in something is one thing... I may be interested in politics, but that doesn't make me a politician! Same difference. Let's see, about the marriage data... I don't say that the numbers from previous years are totally useless. But they cannot help us to make a valid comparison yet. I'd rather wait until the figures from July come rolling by, and then we can start really talking. About the 'claims of a lobby that didn't offer to back it up'...Do you mean the figures that Zerolo gave? Because he did say how they obtained them, and they are official. You may look at them with skepticism or not depending on your political orientation, but they're official (kinda like when there are public marches against something: everyone gives their own figures. So I think it's okay to have Zerolo's claim here, because it is an official one. It'd be great to have another one to counterbalance it, from the law sector or whatever, that have the resources to either back up that claim or not. I fully agree with that).
About the lesbian women argument...If two women marry and decide to have a kid, for eg in vitro, it's the same as a het couple with fertility problems that need help having a kid. It is no mere 'helping to raise a kid', as an aunt would do, it's having and raising a kid as two parents. It's having and doing a life project, thought-out, decided and executed, like any other couple would do. There is no difference. That's why the same kind of benefits should be applied, in my opinion. Because it's a family born out of a marriage. Cheers! Raystorm 15:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
While I do understand the desire of same-sex couples to have their own children, right now there aren't methods (that I'm aware of) to mix two gamets from the same gender, so it wouldn't be a children from both parents. This also brings out oddities like sisters and brothers (the term stepbrother would be more correct) having no bonds in common, which would theoretically allow some of them to marry some of the others without it being inbreeding. I say theoretically, because it's illegal, and the law shouldn't do distintions within the same family.
Instead of trying to equipare same-sex marriages and normal marriages, people should just accept that they are different things, which should be managed differently for the sake of both. The "lesbians have children" argument is no more than a shield against the unfortunate fact that homo relationships just aren't productive (in the sense of procreation, workarounds of questionable morality aside). That's why gays want to be able to adopt: they want to overcome the stigma that prevents them to be like everyone else. Though I sympatize with them, I don't think forcing things is the way to go. Cheers DrJones 23:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

There's a link to a webpage which offers some points against redefining the concept of marriage to allow same-sex marriages. It also has a link to a FAQ that, like others, avoids answering the hard questions, but shows that they aren't against same-sex unions "per se":

 P: Si algunos aspectos del matrimonio se asemejan a los de otras relaciones, ¿esto significa que no es distinto de otras relaciones?
 R: Es cierto que las relaciones de parejas de hecho producen hijos, algunos matrimonios no, y algunas parejas del mismo sexo tienen hijos sea de relaciones anteriores o con la ayuda de las nuevas tecnologías. Lo que es importante es no dividir el matrimonio en sus componentes sino mirar a su fin más importante que está profundamente arraigado en nuestra historia, cultura y tradiciones religiosas. 

 P: ¿Qué se puede decir sobre las uniones de hecho del mismo sexo?
 R: Hay otras relaciones entre adultos que implican compromiso, cariño e interdependencia emocional y financiera, impliquen o no un componente sexual. Si el gobierno ve conveniente tratar sus preocupaciones a través de uniones civiles o parejas registradas, se debería hacer de manera que no redefina radicalmente el matrimonio. El matrimonio debe mantenerse como una institución de sexos opuestos.

Now I'm curious to know about which benefits are exactly there for promoting procreation in marriages. Free days for Honeymoon trips? DrJones 13:34, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. I think we've gone a little off-topic here now. We were discussing about putting certain marriage figures in the article. If you wanna debate about the validity of using the word marriage, I'm not sure this is the place to do it. It is mentioned in the article that such a debate exists, so I'm not sure what you wanna do here now~(well, I do know, but I'm not sure if that can be done). Understand, I like to debate about this topic as the person next door, but I don't think this is the place. Here we gotta correct articles to the best of our ability. Aren't we going off-topic doing anything else? Like debating, in the feminism article, if feminism is valid nowadays or not, for eg. I'm just asking, I'm still new to this and am not too sure what is and is not appropiate here. Cheers! Raystorm 19:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I think that too. I only intended to split the marriage numbers section, because it was going offtopic, then I read that we were discussing about the benefits given by the state to marriages without talking about which ones were. Then, I found that webpage with info about the debate on the term, so I posted the link if anyone want to read it. I don't plan to argue more about this, unless someone wants to write a section on the "controversial aspects of this law" on the article. DrJones 11:49, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Polls removed

I have removed three links to polls with vote tendency because they felt out of place. I also have corrected some numbers from an unverified source that seemed to claim that the Gay Parade March was more successful than the March for the Family, something that is blatantly false. By the way, the explanation given by official sources to the discrepancy between their data and the one from the organization on the first march is that official sources counted 4 people/m², while organization used as estimation the full capacity of the place (2 Million, reached during the visit of the Pope). An aerial photograph from both events would be enough to see which numbers are closer (75% according the organizers or 7.5% according official sources).

About the Gay Parade March, no official explanations were given to any of the numbers. I cannot talk about it, but as Pedro Zerolo was among the organizers if I remember correctly, I expect his claim to be absurdly exaggerated. DrJones 12:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I wish you had left the polls, because it would have been informative to show how events developed after the law had been passed, at least to give people an idea of the support/opposition it had, citing the different (and opposing) sources. I disagree with the 'blatantly false' statement, by the way, especially since the government of Madrid, lead by the Conservative party, refused to send an helicopter to take aerial photographs of the gay march, which actually speaks for itself, but that's my POV, and this is not the place to discuss it anyway. Cheers Raystorm 11:28, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
You can't adjudicate the impact on polls to a single political decision. For example, the vote intend could have lowered/raised by this motive, but raise/lower by another. By doing that, I fear you could be committing the same mistake that if you attributed the lack of pirates to global warming. Besides, I don't rely too much on political polls on Spain because they have a (well-earned) fame of being baked/skewed by the supporters of the study. If they were more about the topic of discussion I would have kept them, though.
About my statement about the falsification of numbers, you are free to disagree with me, and encouraged to find alternative sources with actual numbers. I spent a day looking for them and finally wrote the only ones I could find (cited one source, but found two throwing those numbers). It's sad that we live on a country where the media is more interested in disinformation than the other way around, so we can't contrast them, but my POV is that the numbers given by the organizers (*cough* Pedro Zerolo *cough*) seem too suspiciously "slighty higher than the ones of the manifestation we try to counter" to have reasonable doubts about their legitimacy/credibility (this doesn't automatically make accurate the numbers given by the other organizers, of course).
Lastly, the government of Madrid, though technically it is leaded by the Conservative Party, it is also leaded by the most "progressist" (I don't know if that's the most accurate term) of their representants, who has married same-sex couples himself. The government of Madrid gave very low numbers for the manifestants for the "Forum of the Family", too, so I just don't see a solid basis for your point. DrJones 23:37, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I repeat, what's wrong with handing out the official versions of the polls? Give out Zerolo's version and explain he's a liberal very much in favour of the law, give out the government of Madrid's estimates and explain it's ruled by the conservative party, and give out the government delegate estimates, and explain the Spanish government is the one that approved the law. People will get the idea of who is trying to inflate or deflate the figures with that. I just think it might be informative, in a how-the-law-was-received kind of way. Later, we can talk about the Family Forum march and give out the same official estimates. Those two marches congregated a lot of people just for a single law, I think it's worth mentioning. Raystorm 21:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Sources

Why in the section 'marriage numbers' the only sources cited are La Razon (a blatantly right-wing Spanish newspaper) and an article whose headline is, 'Unmasking the gay lie?' I mean, can we get any more POV here? If we can't find other sources to give a balance to the section (and a balance is needed, because there are always two ways to make the numbers speak for themselves), I suggest putting a tag there warning of possible POV. Cheers Raystorm 11:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, that's because the other side intentionally hid the data. That's not my fault. If you search for same-sex marriage numbers on the web, you will find a lot of pro-same-sex marriages sites questioning why was so much uproar about same-sex marriage then, if it was such a disaster (sic). The data, however, is accurate both with the number of same-sex marriages given by Zerolo at that date, and with the usual number of marriages on Spain every year. The data also comes from real civil registries, you just have to call them if you want to be sure. I understand your doubts about the POV of these sources, that's why I have searched the web before posting them, and no reliable sources were found disputing the numbers. Please don't just dismiss data based on their sources, that's Ad Hominem. Cheers. DrJones 00:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I have read your changes on the marriage numbers section and I don't know if I have fully understood what you wanted to say. Do you mean that LaRazon might have intentionally left out registries against their point? That's a valid point, but wouldn't it count as Original Research? "Half the country" is an assumption also likely to be Original Research. It could be perfectly more than that (assuming that the registries aren't uniformly distributed), or fewer than that (people aren't uniformly distributed around Spain, either). The article already stated that the info only takes into account half of the registries, so I find the remark somewhat superfluous. DrJones 00:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
On the contrary, I mean that LaRazon intentionally counted missing registries as favoring their point. Most of the registries did not distinguish between het and gay marriage when giving their total marriage numbers. LaRazon just made estimates from those registries based on those registries that had made the distinction. And about not finding reliable sources disputing the the numbers, it depends on what you call reliable. You can check Spanish gay and lesbian associations (such as felgt, cogam) for their data. Would that be biased? More than LaRazon and the other article cited? I don't know. But would it give a balance to what is presented? Certainly. Raystorm 21:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Took off from the article the statement from 'Unmasking the gay lie' (http://www.esposibleelcambio.com/cms/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2081&forum=24&post_id=24240), but not because of what you may think. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/examples#Use of electronic or online sources. Material from bulletin boards and forum sites, Usenet, wikis, blogs and comments associated with blog entries should not be used as sources. These media do not have adequate levels of editorial oversight or author credibility and lack assured persistence. Cheers Raystorm 18:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)