same-sex unions - The African Mirror

Oct

2021

FEATURE-Lithuania’s ‘gay propaganda’ law looms over fight for same-sex unions

RACHEL SAVAGE AS the target of constant homophobic abuse as a teenager, Rimas Prokopovicius rarely heard anything positive about gay people when he was growing up in a provincial city in northern Lithuania. Like many young LGBT+ people in the Baltic state, a member of the European Union since 2004, he blames the country's "gay propaganda" law. While the 2009 legislation has not been enforced in recent years, LGBT+ rights campaigners say it legitimises homophobic attitudes, curbs free speech and is hampering their fight for same-sex civil partnerships to be legalised. "I'd really like to see the law (overturned) ...…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

German priests defy Vatican ban by blessing same-sex unions

RELIGION

ENRIQUE ANARTE THE Catholic Church has lost touch with the "living reality" of LGBT+ people, said one of more than 100 German priests who are defying the Vatican this week by blessing same-sex couples. In a move that angered liberals within the 1.3 billion-member Church, the Vatican's doctrinal office said in March that priests cannot bless same-sex unions in lieu of marriage, despite ministers doing so in countries such as Germany. "If we say that God is love, I cannot tell people who embrace loyalty, unity and responsibility to each other that theirs is not love, that it's a fifth-or…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Dismay greets Vatican’s decree on same-sex unions

RELIGION

PHILLIP PULLELLA THE Vatican has decreed that priests cannot bless same-sex unions and that such blessings are not valid, in a ruling that greatly disappointed gay Catholics who had hoped their Church was becoming more welcoming under Pope Francis. In some countries, such as the United States and Germany, parishes and ministers have begun blessing same-sex unions in lieu of marriage, and there have been calls for bishops to de facto institutionalise these. But conservatives in the 1.3 billion-member Church have expressed alarm over these practices, particularly those in Germany where at least two bishops, including Cardinal Reinhard Marx of…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Pope Francis endorses same-sex unions

RELIGION

PHILLIP PULLELLA POPE Francis says that homosexuals should be protected by civil union laws, in some of the clearest language he has used on the rights of gay people. "Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They are children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable over it," he says in the documentary "Francesco" by Oscar-nominated director Evgeny Afineevsky. "What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that," he said. The pope appeared to…