"We are not legislating, honourable members,
for people far away and not known by us. We
are enlarging the opportunity for happiness
to our neighbours, our co-workers, our
friends and our families: at the same time
we are making a more decent society, because
a decent society is one that does not
humiliate its members.
In the poem
'The
Family,' our poet
Luis Cernuda was sorry because,
'How does man live in denial in vain/by
giving rules that prohibit and condemn?'
Today, the Spanish society answers to a
group of people who, during many years, have
been humiliated, whose rights have been
ignored, whose dignity has been offended,
their identity denied, and their liberty
oppressed. Today the Spanish society grants
them the respect they deserve, recognises
their rights, restores their dignity,
affirms their identity, and restores their
liberty.
It is true that they are only a minority,
but their triumph is everyone's triumph. It
is also the triumph of those who oppose this
law, even though they do not know this yet:
because it is the triumph of liberty. Their
victory makes all of us (even those who
oppose the law) better people, it makes our
society better.
Honourable members, there is no damage to
marriage or to the concept of family in
allowing two people of the same sex to get
married. To the contrary, what happens is
this class of Spanish citizens get the
potential to organise their lives with the
rights and privileges of marriage and
family. There is no danger to the
institution of marriage, but precisely the
opposite: this law enhances and respects
marriage.
Today, conscious that some people and
institutions are in a profound disagreement
with this change in our civil law, I wish to
express that, like other reforms to the
marriage code that preceded this one, this
law will generate no evil, that its only
consequence will be the avoiding of
senseless suffering of decent human beings.
A society that avoids senseless suffering of
decent human beings is a better society.
With the approval of this Bill, our country
takes another step in the path of liberty
and tolerance that was begun by the
democratic change of government. Our
children will look at us incredulously if we
tell them that many years ago, our mothers
had less rights than our fathers, or if we
tell them that people had to stay married
against their will even though they were
unable to share their lives.
Today we can offer them a beautiful lesson:
every right gained, each access to liberty
has been the result of the struggle and
sacrifice of many people that deserve our
recognition and praise.
Today we demonstrate with this Bill that
societies can better themselves and can
cross barriers and create tolerance by
putting a stop to the unhappiness and
humiliation of some of our citizens."
