Madrid, Spain, Sep 28, 2005 / 22:00 pm
A lower court judge in Spain has filed the first case of conscientious objection to a Federal Court against the country’s new law on homosexual “marriage” approved last June.
Judge Isabel Lopez Garcia-Nieto of Colmenar Viejo, on the outskirts of Madrid, sent a written request to the Federal Court in Madrid on September 14 requesting to be removed from involvement in two cases of homosexual “marriage.” Judge Lopez said her request was based on “legitimate conscientious objection.”
In her written request, the judge maintained that her conscientious objection should be respected because as a Catholic, she has a moral obligation to adhere to the Church’s teaching that such unions constitute “a flagrant denial of fundamental anthropological data and an authentic subversion of the most basic principles of social order.”
In addition to citing statements by the Bishops’ Conference of Spain, Judge Lopez also noted that Spain’s Constitutional Court has defended the right to conscientious objection. “Conscientious objection forms a part of the content of the fundamental right to ideological and religious freedom” recognized in the Spanish Constitution, she argued.