_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Same-sex unions approved
Quick rebuke from Rome
In December the Dutch Senate passed legislation allowing same-sex couples to enter into legal marriages and to adopt children. The bills had already been passed by the lower house of parliament and are expected to take effect next April.
“As far as possible, homosexual marriage will have the same consequences as heterosexual marriage,” the Senate measure said. Same-sex couples have been recognized in Dutch law since 1998, but only one member of the couple was allowed to have parental rights over any adopted children.
L’Osservatore Romano condemned the new Dutch legislation. The Vatican newspaper denounced the “revolutionary innovations” in Holland, saying that same-sex unions are “contrary to nature,” and that the legislature is acting upon “a false conception of freedom.” Father Gino Concetti, the moral theologian who is a regular columnist for the Vatican newspaper, said the law is “a grave affront” to justice and a blow against the institution of marriage.
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