No sooner has the Holy Father left the country than Portugal introduces gay marriage: The conservative president has signed the corresponding law - albeit with stomach pains.
Anibal Cavaco Silva is standing up to the Pope: the Portuguese President has signed a law that opens up marriage to homosexual couples in Portugal. He made the announcement in a televised speech on Monday evening.
During a sermon at the pilgrimage site of Fatima on Friday, Benedict XVI had indirectly called on people to fight against the law and described gay marriage as an "extremely insidious and dangerous challenge of the present".
This makes Portugal 100 per cent democratic, even though it is over 90 per cent Catholic. The conservative Silva noted, however, that signing the law would not have been easy for him. However, he believes it is important to unite the nation after the dispute over the law introduced by the socialist governing coalition in order to focus on overcoming Portugal's economic difficulties. Portugal has been hit hard by the euro crisis. The country's credit rating has been downgraded several times in recent weeks.
After Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, Portugal is now the sixth European country in which homosexual couples can marry.
(Paul Schulz)
