Opposition
A number of groups opposed legalizing same-sex marriage during the process of discussion and continue to do so after ratification.
The Catholic Church in Portugal was opposed to the law and, while Portugal is a constitutional secular country, its status as a historically Catholic country was also a reason for the media sensationalism which heightened the controversy over the law.
On 8 January 2010, the parliament rejected a motion calling to the national referendum about same-sex marriage. In February, 5,000 people demonstrated against legalization of same-sex marriage in a march in Lisbon.
On 13 May 2010, during an official visit to Portugal four days before the ratification of the law, Pope Benedict XVI, affirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage, describing it as "insidious and dangerous".
Read more about this topic: Same-sex Marriage In Portugal
Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“It is human agitation, with all the vulgarity of needs small and great, with its flagrant disgust for the police who repress it, it is the agitation of all men ... that alone determines revolutionary mental forms, in opposition to bourgeois mental forms.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)