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[Article] Martin McGuinness supports Gay Marriage

  • 25-04-2004 4:14pm
    #1
    yellum
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,025 ✭✭✭


    SF chief attacked on gay marriage support

    By David Quinn
    featureseditor@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
    23 April 2004

    SINN Fein's Martin McGuinness, a practising Catholic, has been attacked by a leading churchman after openly expressing his support for gay marriage and adoption, as well as abortion under certain circumstances.

    Mr McGuinness, who is interviewed in this week's Irish Catholic, also denies there is any antagonism in Sinn Fein towards the Catholic Church.

    He dismisses Catholic Church opposition to gay marriage, reiterated in a Vatican document issued last year and says he backs his party's support for gay marriage and adoption on the grounds that we "live in a new age of equality".

    Mr McGuinness also says he personally supports abortion in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother is at risk.

    Mr McGuinness has been attacked over his remarks by one of the Church's leading academics. Fr Brendan Purcell, a lecturer in philosophy at UCD, rounded on Mr McGuinness saying it is "unacceptable and inconsistent for a Catholic politician to so drastically detach his politics from the teachings of his Church in this way".

    Father Purcell said: "A person's religious beliefs shouldn't be all but irrelevant to his politics. A Catholic politician is not bound to legislate Church teaching, but where your Church teaches that something is a basic human right, for example the right to life, or the right of a child to have a mother and father, you can't simply jettison these teachings from your political life."

    In the interview, Mr McGuinness says that both he and Gerry Adams gain "solace" from attending Mass and that this is respected by other members of the party.

    "I go to Mass every Sunday and I haven't found antagonism in Sinn Fein to the Church," he said.


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