Spanish expert says awareness of need to protect family does exist

Madrid, Spain, Jul 28, 2008 / 19:16 pm

The president of the Spanish Forum for the Family, Benigno Blanco, said last week families in Spain are aware of the need to protect the family, but that the same cannot be said of legislators that are following anti-family ideologies.

“The family and its defenders are not only not a minority in our society; they are a majority despite appearances.  Perhaps ‘public opinion’ is very pro-gender ideology, but ‘public opinion’ is very pro-family,” he said during a seminar organized by the University of Navarre.

Nonetheless, he pointed out that laws approved in recent years have affected the Spanish family very negatively, “destroying the conceptual basis of marriage so as to render it unrecognizable, banalizing marital commitment to ridiculous degrees,” limiting freedom of education, denying protection to the unborn and spreading gender ideology, which is “radically contrary to the family.”

He noted that Spain continues to be the European country that offers the least protection to the family.  The demographic decline and the economic crisis, Blanco said, have led Europe to look for ways to help the family “with a vigor that is unknown in Spain.”

Blanco called for more events to take place that reaffirm the importance of the family, and praised families for “standing up for their way of life and demanding the respect and support” they deserve for their great contributions to society, in the face of prejudices and intolerance.