Spain’s VOX candidate compares same-sex marriages to ‘union of people and animals’

One cannot call marriage a union of two people of the same sex, it would be more appropriate to define it as a union between a person and an animal, Mariano Latorre, candidate of the far-right VOX – party in the province of Cuenca (centre-south) said on Thursday, two days ahead of Spain’s general elections.

The issue of LGBTQ+ rights has been at the centre of the political parties’ attention during the campaign for the general elections and has also been one of the most controversial issues in the three election debates that have been held on the Iberian country’s television, the last of them on Wednesday evening.

“We cannot call everything a marriage (because if we do so) tomorrow we could also call marriage a union of a person with a cat”, Latorre told the local website Enciende Cuenca in an interview, quoted by EURACTIV’s partner EFE.

Following the offensive comments by VOX’s candidate for the province of Cuenca, the president of the socialist party (PSOE/S&D) in the region, Sergio Gutiérrez, has called for the urgent resignation of the “ultra” politician.

Without your ‘own’ children there can be no ‘marriage’

“Marriage, as its own name indicates, is a union of a man and a woman that is supposed to bring with it an offspring”, explained the VOX politician in the interview, in which he also touched upon other controversial issues like immigration – echoing other ideologically related parties, like Meloni’s Fratelli D’Italia.

“When in Spain, in the 1940s, there was very strong immigration to other European countries, like Germany, France. The Spaniards who entered did not arrive, throwing acid in the face of the policemen to enter through the border. They didn’t arrive stealing, raping women, occupying houses”, Latorre stated.

These Spanish immigrants adapted to the customs of the countries where they settled to live, “they worked, paid their taxes and were welcome,” he added.

“We do the same, anyone who comes here legally, who knocks on our door and who adapts to our way of life or, at least, who is compatible with it, is welcome, particularly if they work and contribute” to Spanish society, Latorre added.

According to the local branch of PSOE, the VOX candidate should not be allowed to participate in Sunday’s elections. His insulting and degrading words disqualify him from taking part in democratic elections, the socialist party claims.

Meanwhile, Gutiérrez pointed out that responsibility does not only lie with VOX but “also with the PP (centre-right Partido Popular)” as it is (PP/EPP) “an ally of the far-right-wing party”.

In Gutiérrez’s words, this is a clear example “of what the next four years could mean for the Spanish people” if Partido Popular, currently the main opposition force, and Vox forge a coalition to govern at the national level.

A VOX deputy PM?

In addition, he called it “intolerable” that a person who thinks this way and makes these statements should be allowed to be a candidate for a political party in Spain.

If both the PP and Vox have “a minimum of democratic conscience or ethical convictions”, they should request the immediate resignation of VOX’s head of the list in Cuenca. “It is humiliating that there are candidates (…) aspiring to (become) deputies (at the national level) who think that there are homosexuals who can be dogs”, the socialist politician added.

Spain’s general elections on Sunday could radically change the country’s political map.

The polls point to a victory for the PP, which, if it does not obtain an absolute hierarchy of 176 seat majority (176 seats out of 350), would have to make a pact with VOX, as it has already done at the regional and municipal levels after the local elections held on 28 May.

If the PP, led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo and VOX, led by Abascal, manage to govern, it would be an unprecedented and historic event as it would be the first time in more than 40 years that far-right ministers – or even an “ultra” deputy prime minister- would enter a national government in Spain.

The question remains whether the progressive bloc forged by Sánchez and Diaz’s Sumar platform will win more seats than the right-wing and far-right bloc combined.

If they succeed, they could re-edit a new left-wing alliance to govern the country for another four years.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)