Gay Spanish Air Force Troop Kicked Off Job After Getting Married

Forty years of fascist catholic dictatorship does tend to leave its mark on a country. Spain has come along way, but it has a long way to go, too.

@Jeff K – two hundred years of fascist protestant religious dictatorship does tend to leave its mark on a country. The USA has come along way, but it has a long way to go, too.

I mean, good grief, kids in the USA are still taught that evolution is wrong, that being gay can be cured. And they don’t even allow marriage in the USA, whereas they do in Spain.

Yeah, Spain has a long way to go!

Outside of rural areas, Spain isn’t anywhere near as religious as the US. Most nominally belong to the Church, but that doesn’t mean they take faith very serious.

The fact that the Catholic Church was deeply involved in the dictatorships of countries such as Spain or Argentina has also caused people to mistrust them a great deal, no matter what power they may still have.

A troop is a group of soldiers. One person cannot be a troop.

This case is more complexed than it seems. The marriage with the other soldier took place in 2006. The couple is divorced but the soldier does not want to talk about that. The other soldier has had no problems with the army at all. In the mean time there was an erotic calendar. I have nothing against gay calendars but it seems to me a bit weird. Some Spanish gay press (yeah, Spanish GAY press) also say that the soldier is using all this to promote a new biography of him!
So, as a gay that lives in Spain, my first reaction was to believe the soldier, but now I am not so sure. The fact that he is gay does not mean that all he says is right. He may be a victim of the Spanish Army or just someone that wants to get famous thanks to it. Or both …
I have the suspicious that some people want to get famous and they use whatever they can.
I say all this because so that you know that not all the gay organizations and gay people back in Spain are backing this soldier.

About the gay marriage and the comments in this post I find strange that here we have gay marriage and that you do not have gay marriage in such a iconic place like San Francisco. But maybe this can be the answer: Back in the early 70′s a gay person in San Francisco had gay pubs and some freedom to be gay. In Spain you could go to prison for that (and some people I know they went to prison for that!) So I think that in Spain anything that opposes what Franco would have oppossed is welcome! Maybe in Argentina has happened something similar. We both suffered horrible dictatorships and now we both have gay marriage. Anyway, you cannot have gay marriage in most of the USA but you have much more awareness than here. I wish we had so may associations. Or QUEERTY. Or GLAAD!

“So I think that in Spain anything that opposes what Franco would have opposed is welcome!”

Oh really? by everyone? In that case, why isn’t Spain a republic with a purple stripe on the bottom of its flag? Why is the current head of state the hand-picked successor of Franco himself?

And who are these people?

[img]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/capt.jj81206301455.spain_gay_marriage_jj812.jpg[/img]

[img]http://ulises.blogia.com/upload/20070126182101-fachas2006.jpg[/img]

Spain is a wonderful country with a majority of good people, but like I said before, there’s a lot of bad seeds and to do to make amends with the past. Gay marriage was a stroke of good fortune owing to the lack of federalism (why we only have it in SOME states in the U.S.) and the outcome of the 2004 election. It could have just as easily been Rajoy in the Moncloa and then Spain would be in a worse situation regarding gay rights than the U.S.

of course there is homophobia in spain,like in france,sweden,germany,england… etc.these pictures were probably taken during the “family gathering parade”,plotted by the catholic church,but there was also a counter protest.i don’t know about the future of the PP ,i do know that so far most Spaniards hardly tolerate this party.sometimes, we think that the other side is greener,when i was in spain,since i liked so much american culture,i was crazy about coming to the usa.my partner didn’t want to come,but i insisted so the quarrels were almost daily.today,my partner is in love with the usa,and i’m the one who can’t wait to go back to spain.i still love the usa,and i adore american culture but i still get goose bumps when i think of my town,Valencia.here where i live ,everything seems so “spread out” and no body walks,so… go figure,is super booooring.i would like to try new york,san francisco or los angeles.i do think that the usa is very homophobic in comparion with spain,spanish people have prejudices and stuff like that but somehow you don’t see the blatant homophobic attacks that you see here, specially those involving religion.i blame the christian fundamentalists in the freaking bible belt for this.

@Gilber, I am with you regarding the USA! Spot on in your assessment!

As for you jeff K, you really should just shut up and not dig yourself further into the hole you’ve dug for yourself!

I mean silly comments such as this: “Gay marriage was a stroke of good fortune owing to the lack of federalism (why we only have it in SOME states in the U.S.) and the outcome of the 2004 election.”

Er no. Gay marriage being achieved in Spain is nothing to do with being “a stroke of good fortune” but is all to do with having a fucking good SOCIALIST government in Spain. Nothing to do with federalism or the lack of it, dummy! The Spanish PM went into Parliament and made an astounding speech apologising for hundreds of years of homophobia which my spanish gay pals tell me made them cry it was so moving.

Gay marriage is becoming or has become, the European mainstream and whilst countries like France and the UK only have civil partnerships we are all moving in that direction and will soon have the full thing.

As for Spain, most Spaniards do not support the fascists, and were overjoyed to see them gone. And most Spanish do not support the catholic church. And whilst I may not like the fact that both the UK and Spain are monarchies, preferring a republic in both cases, I have to admit that King Juan Carlos has played an important role in ensuring spain moved from dictatorship to democracy.

And whilst it is true that franco hand-picked King Juan Carlos as his chosen successor, in fact the new King reneged promptly on Franco’s legacy and set up a commission to re-establish democracy. Then when some crackpot general later tried to have a coup against the new democracy, bursting into the Parliament and firing shots, King Juan Carlos went on TV and told the army to stop being silly and go back to their barracks.

Hi Jeff!
I think you are right in most of the things you say, I must admit! I think you are right when you say we were lucky too. I know that in the USA although gay marriage is not allowed in most of the states you are much more organised in relation to lgbt issues. Here, we just have gay marriage. But we do not have Glaad, Querty, the Trevor Project, etc.
But there is one thing that makes me think a possible reason why you do not have gay marriage in most of the states in the USA. I
think that the reason could be that there is much more radicalism. Here in Spain most people are Catholics but you won’t see banners here saying things like “God Hates Faggots” as could be seen in the USA. I am sure that a lot of people in Spain do not like gay marriage but currently we are not having demonstrations against it. In the past, there were not also big demonstrations asking for gay marriage either! On the other hand I find it does not help at all that people who oppose Gay Marriage are called, in the US, anti-gay! I think this makes things worse. If you want people who oppose Gay Marriage not to oppose gay marriage the first you have to do is to be fair. I think is ridiculous and childish to call anti-gay to the people who oppose gay marriage. I would never call the USA or Japan an anti-life country because there is death penalty in some of its states.
I do not think that Rajoy or Bush is an anti-gay person. They just oppose gay marriage.
I think that the more respect show both parts regarding gay marriage the faster gay marriage would come to the states of the USA. I thinK the things should calm down.
Anyway, I think that marriage, gay or not, is an old-fashioned thing but, like Eminen said, let the gays also be able to be disgraceful. I am in favour that gay people marry but I find sad when you even copy mistakes from heterosexual couples. In the US when a man marries a woman,the woman loses its surname and takes the one from the husband. A tradition but also a discrimination against the woman. This does not happen In Spain (this does not mean, however that the Spanish woman suffers no discrimination in other things unfortunately). I read the other day tha the couple of DeGeneres asked for her surname to be the one of DeGeneres. I find that terrible. It is copying something that comes from discrimination, isn’t it?
Who, knows, maybe in 20 yers time the discussion is not about banning gay marriage or not. It is just about banning just marriage!

@Jeff K.: King Juan Carlos of Spain stopped a coup d’état which aimed to overthrow the new Spanish democratic government by coming out against it. He made it clear that he believed Spanish democracy must continue.

@gilber: You sound like you really would liek San Francisco, just get your muni pass, and there you, anyway in the city in minutes. A caveat tho…you have to be able to afford it.

This site is becoming unbelievable! My comments are not even allowed on now, whereas homomphobes and religious nutters are allowed free rein