Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardon of the main conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) yesterday officiated for the first time at a gay marriage and came in for party flak as the PP is generally fiercely opposed to same-sex unions.
Ruiz Gallardon was all smiles as he turned up to oversee the ceremony between PP activist Javier Gomez and city council employee Manuel Rodenas.
Ruiz Gallardon is regarded as a party moderate – but that did not stop political allies protesting after Gomez, who described Gallardon as a longstanding friend, and Rodenas tied the knot.
PP communications secretary Gabriel Elorriaga said the mayor’s stance on the issue was “incoherent” when juxtaposed to party policy and called for “the greatest coherence and solidarity” with the wider party line.
Nonetheless, that line has been cracking in recent months, with another PP mayor performing the ceremony uniting a PP municipal councillor with his partner in traditionally conservative Galicia last April after the Socialist government legalised same-sex unions a year ago.
Galician PP regional leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo also attended that ceremony, even though the party had joined the Roman Catholic Church in protesting against the new law.
The PP appealed against the gay marriages ruling to the Constitutional Court on the grounds that the Spanish constitution only specifically mentions marriage between a man and a woman.
In respect of Ruiz Gallardon’s officiating yesterday, Elorriaga recognised that the party “has to carry out the law” as it now stands.
Ruiz Gallardon in a brief statement said that the ceremony “went off as weddings should do” after saying on Friday that the law “must be applied”.
More than 4,500 gay couples, four in five of them males, have married in Spain since the new law took effect.
(Source:GulfTimes)
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