Last Friday, lawmakers in Germany voted to allow same-sex marriage after a brisk but emotional debate in Parliament, setting the stage for the country to join more than a dozen European nations — including Ireland, France and Spain — in legalizing such unions.
The historic decision came with a swiftness rare in Germany’s politics, after Chancellor Angela Merkel unexpectedly eased her conservative party’s opposition to gay marriage and said she would allow lawmakers to vote their conscience on the measure, although she personally voted against it.
Ms. Merkel’s softened resistance paved the way for her coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party and two other political groups to press for Friday’s vote, which passed 393 to 226, with four abstentions.
“If the Constitution guarantees one thing, it is that anyone in this country can live as they wish,” Thomas Oppermann, the parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, said in opening the floor debate. “If gay marriage is decided, then many will receive something, but nobody will have something taken away.”
How wrong you are, Herr Oppermann!
His remark was clearly intended to defuse conservatives — including Ms. Merkel — who argued that the Constitution protected conventional marriage.
Germany was jolted in the direction of approving gay marriage last weekend, when two major political parties said they would make the legislation a condition of any future coalition agreement with the Christian Democrats, led by Ms. Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term in the general election in September.
Approval of same-sex marriage in Germany could build momentum for similar legislation in other German-speaking countries, like Austria and Switzerland, said Katrin Hugendubel, advocacy director of ILGA-Europe, a gay and transgender rights group.
She said the developments in Germany illustrated the difference that opposition parties could make.
“For us, the most important lesson is for the opposition to be very outspoken in supporting L.G.B.T.I. rights,” Ms. Hugendubel said. “The Social Democrats’ and the Greens’ making it a coalition condition raised the pressure on the conservatives, so it’s very important that those in favor across Europe make it a condition, and be very strong in their support.”
It is unfortunate that the Catholic community is not as outspoken in defending traditional marriage as the LGBT activists.
The fact that a political party can pass legislation on matters so opposed to classical Christian teaching against homosexuality and still call itself the “Christian” Democratic Party is the greatest of hypocrisies.
Generations to come will condemn the lack of witness and courage manifested by Catholic leaders and members of the faithful in the utter failure to defend the sanctity of Holy Matrimony against the attacks of perverse and deviant forces within the secular culture.
What a shocking display of indifference and cowardice on the part of the Catholic communities around the world who are permitting the undoing of Biblical teachings and centuries of Christian formation which have defended Marriage and family life, the bedrock of society itself.
How clear it is that the Church has lost its place in influencing and affecting the culture and society in which it finds itself in the modern world of permissiveness and self-gratification.
The cost to future generations deprived of the guidance of Biblical and theological teaching which once promoted and supported civilized society will be great indeed.
We are witnessing the collapse of Western Civilization itself and the Church is useless and ineffectual in coming to its rescue.
How sad indeed!
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