We are not making law, honorable members, for people far away and unknown to us. We are increasing the opportunity for happiness for our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and our families. At the sametime, we are making a more decent society, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members.
Today, the Spanish society answers to a group of people who for many years have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended, their identity denied, and their liberty oppressed. Today the Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve, recognizes their rights, restores their dignity, affirms their identity, and restores their liberty.
It is true that they are only a minority, but their triumph is everyone's triumph. It is also the triumph of those who oppose this law, even though they do not know this yet, because it is the triumph of liberty. Their victory makes all of us, even those who oppose thelaw, better people. It makes our society better.
Honorable members, there is no damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing two people of the same sex to get married. To the contrary, what happens is this class of Spanish citizens gets the opportunity to organize their lives with the rights and privileges of marriage and family. There is no danger to the institution of marriage, but precisely the opposite: This law enhances and respects marriage.
Today, conscious that some people and institutions are in profound disagreement with this change in our civil law, I wish to say that, like other reforms to the marriage code that preceded this one, this law will generate no evil, and that its only consequence will be to avoid the senseless suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids the senseless suffering of decent human beings is a better society.
With the approval of this bill, our country takes another step in the path of liberty and tolerance that was begun by the democratic change of government. Our children will look at us incredulously if we tell them that many years ago, our mothers had fewer rights than our fathers, or if we tell them that people had to stay married against their will even though they were unable to share their lives. Today we can offer them a beautiful lesson: Every right gained, each access to liberty, has been the result of the struggle and sacrifice of many people that deserve our recognition and praise.
How much longer will it be before we hear such a speech from an American head of state?
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