EU Votes this Week to Push Same-Sex Civil Unions

Same-sex partnerships within the EU is an indication of the "constant degradation of European Union institutions."

ROME (LifeSiteNews) - The European Parliament is set to vote this week on a resolution that will promote abortion and same-sex unions throughout the European Union. The resolution, authored by Giusto Catania, an Italian Communist MEP, calls upon EU member-states to guarantee access to "sexual and reproductive health and rights" and represents the next step in the work of European homosexualist activists.

In article 75, the resolution, which bases its arguments on the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, calls for Member States that have already recognized same-sex civil unions in law to also recognize similar unions contracted by homosexual couples in other Member States.

Member States with same-sex partnership legislation, says the resolution, should "propose guidelines for mutual recognition of existing legislation between Member States in order to guarantee that the right of free movement within the European Union for same-sex couples applies under conditions equal to those applicable to heterosexual couples."

Pro-family and pro-life advocates are calling on citizens of EU member states to contact their representatives to ask them to oppose the resolution. John Smeaton, director of the UK's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children wrote that the resolution "repeats the usual calls by the pro-abortion lobby for more contraception, more sex education and more confidential advisory services."

"Providing these things, however, does nothing to decrease the numbers of abortions, sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies, and may in fact serve to increase them."

Smeaton warns that the resolution must be rejected because it "promotes an unauthentic model of the family, by seeking to impose upon EU member-states the recognition of same-sex unions."

The Giusto Catania resolution is the next step in a process to force EU member states to implement the full homosexualist political program. In October last year, a declaration tabled by British MEP Sharon Bowles instructed member states "with existing same-sex partnership legislation to recognise the arrangements of other Member States that have also made provisions for same-sex partnerships." It called for "guidelines for such mutual recognition by Member States with existing same-sex partnership legislation." The Bowles declaration also demanded that all member states recognise the same-sex "marriages" and civil partnerships of all other member states, as part of the freedom of movement provisions of the EU.

This move was the result of the work of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA-Europe) which had told the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on Fundamental Rights in the EU that recognition of civil same-sex partnerings is one of the issues of "freedom of movement and mutual recognition of LGBT families relationships in the EU." Bowles had admitted in an interview in August 2008 that she had drafted the declaration "with the participation of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) Europe."

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In August this year, a report by the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of the European Union called for binding EU regulations that would equalize the legal status of couples in natural marriages with that of same-sex partners across Europe.

Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro, head of the Rome office of Human Life International, an attorney with years of experience in international diplomacy at the UN, told LifeSiteNews.com that the push to enforce the recognition of same-sex partnerships within the whole of the EU is an indication of the "constant degradation of European Union institutions."

"We see this resolution," Barreiro said, "with the utmost concern and it is a clear indication of how the European Parliament is moving away from the Christian roots of Europe and also its roots in the Natural Law."

Msgr. Barreiro explained that the push for same-sex "marriage" that is reaching its culmination in most western countries has as its ultimate goal the dissolution of natural marriage and, more generally, of the Christian foundation of western societies. Moreover, he said, this movement did not start with the homosexualist movement but with the legalisation of easy divorce.

Legally speaking, he said, "Christian marriage has been dissolved since the moment you have introduced divorce." From the introduction in most western countries of so-called "no-fault divorce," it was only a short slide down the slope to same-sex unions, he said.

"Fundamentally there is no difference between de facto couples and marriage with easy divorce. It's a question of name only. If you can walk away from marriage without any difficulties, it's basically the same as de facto unions.

"There is a relationship between divorce and the recognition of same sex unions because of the dissolution of marriage. ... If you feel free to redraw this basic, natural institution, with the properties of indissolubility, and fidelity that is inherent to it, and you re-draw a natural institution, then the next step is to re-draw the sexual orientation that that nature has inscribed in the person. Persons come to feel free to choose whatever sexual orientation they please."

This, he said, is the theory of gender that supports the whole of the homosexual political movement. "That the individual should be free to choose his sexual orientation as part of the many ersatz freedoms that have been coined in recent times."

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