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:
“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)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)