Feb 8, 2006 / 22:00 pm
A federal panel of judges in Spain has rejected the petition by a justice of the peace in Valencia to abstain from presiding at “civil marriages” between same-sex partners.
By a vote of 3-2, the panel refused to acknowledge the justice’s right to conscientious objection and ruled that “Judges and Magistrates can never exercise the right to conscientious objection, as they are obliged to follow the rule of law.”
The justice in Valencia has no other recourse to abstain from presiding at homosexual unions. Last December a justice of the peace in the city of Pinto opted to resign rather than preside at such ceremonies.