First case of conscientious objection to homosexual “marriage” in Spain

Madrid, Spain, Sep 28, 2005 / 22:00 pm

A lower court judge in Spain has filed the first case of conscientious objection to a Federal Court against the country’s new law on homosexual “marriage” approved last June.

Judge Isabel Lopez Garcia-Nieto of Colmenar Viejo, on the outskirts of Madrid, sent a written request to the Federal Court in Madrid on September 14 requesting to be removed from involvement in two cases of homosexual “marriage.”  Judge Lopez said her request was based on “legitimate conscientious objection.”

In her written request, the judge maintained that her conscientious objection should be respected because as a Catholic, she has a moral obligation to adhere to the Church’s teaching that such unions constitute “a flagrant denial of fundamental anthropological data and an authentic subversion of the most basic principles of social order.”

In addition to citing statements by the Bishops’ Conference of Spain, Judge Lopez also noted that Spain’s Constitutional Court has defended the right to conscientious objection.  “Conscientious objection forms a part of the content of the fundamental right to ideological and religious freedom” recognized in the Spanish Constitution, she argued.

“My actions stem exclusively from the collision between the legal norm, which imposes an action, and the moral norm which opposes it.  This moral norm is sustained by a system of thought that is consistent and sufficiently organic and sincere,” Lopez continued.

Her actions, she maintained, do not constitute “an anomaly with regards to the rule of law, but rather the legitimate exercise of ‘an autonomous constitutional right’.”  “To deny me the right to conscientious objection would be discrimination and would contradict” the Spanish Constitution, she concluded.