While religious struggles against gender are a transnational phenomenon, the Spanish case was the first European example of mass street mobilizations of Catholics (Paternotte 2015), inspiring other mobilizations in the region. In 2005, the Spanish parliament legalized same-sex marriage as part of a package of measures concerning gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights (Pichardo 2011). Since then, the Spanish Catholic Church has been trying to reverse these reforms by participating in mass demonstrations as well as by setting the tone for arguments against same-sex marriage and the advance of women’s rights.
However, the Church’s approach has changed over the last ten years. Catholic bishops and the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE by its acronym in Spanish) have steadily withdrawn from the centre stage of street mobilization, while lay Catholics have acquired increased visibility. Groups such as HazteOir (HO, Make Yourself Heard), the Foro Español de la Familia (FEF, Spanish Family Forum) and the new political party Vox share members and strategies as well as a radical right-wing discourse. This does not only tackle religious and ethical issues but also articulates concerns over national identity and criticisms of the moderate-conservative Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party), the hegemonic right-wing party.
While impressive in numbers, these mobilizations were not successful in influencing public opinion and repealing gender and sexual rights. Indeed, popular support for same-sex marriage did not decrease (with a majority in favour),1 while major laws in this domain (including same-sex marriage, criminalization of gender violence, gender equality in the national educational curriculum, abortion) remained in force after the election of a conservative government in 2011 (Pichardo and Cornejo 2015).
Given Spain is one of the most Catholic countries in Europe,2 this chapter discusses the reasons of this failure and examines the main conservative actors’ characteristics and repertoire of action. We argue that the efforts failed because the main anti-gender actors adopted a confrontational strategy (Aguilar 2013), which resulted in a split between radicals and moderates. This explanation relies on the notion of “radical flank effect”, that is the impact of the actions and rhetoric of radicals upon their reputation as political actors and the perceived legitimacy of their demands (Haines 1984, 2013, 536).
Since issues like effectiveness, reputation and legitimacy cannot be understood outside a specific cultural and historical context, we first outline the Spanish religious landscape. Second, we explore the rise and the diffusion of the Catholic rhetoric on “gender ideology”, taking into account the progressive and pro-gender legal reforms, which set the pace for subsequent mobilizations. Finally, we analyse actors in details, with a focus on their strategies, behaviours and development from 2004 to 2015. We conclude by connecting these elements (context, discourses and strategies) in order to explain why confrontation and radicalization have contributed to the failure of the Spanish anti-gender movement until now.
Recent surveys (CIS 2015a) show that 70% of Spaniards consider themselves Catholic. However, only 13.3% regularly attend religious ceremonies (CIS 2015a) and 53.4% consider religion to be of little or no importance in their lives (Bescansa and Jerez 2013, 9). In this context, the relationship between the Catholic Church and Spanish society is generally ambiguous. It is rooted in the proximity between the Church and Francoism during the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship (1936–1975). At the beginning of the Civil War, the Church enthusiastically supported the Fascist movement (Payne 1984). Franco later granted himself the right to name bishops (disregarding the authority of Rome) and cultivated a loyal crop of bishops and national religious institutions. Therefore, while the Catholic Church embodies positive values such as freedom, tolerance and democracy in countries like Poland, the Spanish Church is often associated in the public imagination with the dictatorship, political purges, witch-hunts, sexism and sexual repression.
This historical legacy has given rise to an important cultural gap between Catholics and the Church. Prior to the 1980s, no reliable data is available on the topic because Catholicism was compulsory under the dictatorship and citizens could not freely express their beliefs. From the advent of democracy, both public opinion polls on moral issues and data on religious tolerance indicate a widening cultural gap between Spaniards and the Catholic Church.
Spanish Catholics do no longer follow the Church doctrine on issues such as premarital sex, homosexuality, contraceptives, divorce and abortion (Bericat 2015, 1401).3 For instance, same-sex marriage is widely accepted by Catholics (48% of practicing Catholics, 67% of infrequently practicing Catholics and 69% of non-practicing Catholics, Assiego 2015). Furthermore, according to the Univision survey, Spain is the country where lay Catholics are most inclined to accept the idea of Catholic priests celebrating wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples, even though it contradicts the Church’s official position.4
The high visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people has contributed to broad social acceptance (Pichardo 2009), with believers privileging the rights of their non-heterosexual friends or relatives over the mandates of the Catholic hierarchy. For example, during our fieldwork, we met a woman who grew up with strong religious ideas during the dictatorship and discovered that one of her children was gay. Faced with the dilemma of choosing between the mandate of the Church (and spoiling the relationship with her child) or accepting her child’s sexual orientation and maintaining the relationship, she opted for the latter (Pichardo 2009, 166). This is something likely to occur at a large scale today in a culturally Catholic Spain: A large segment of society self-identifies as Catholic but does not go to Church. This is a traditional cultural pattern of popular anticlericalism (Behar 1990; Cornejo Valle 2008).5
Regarding religious tolerance, Pickel’s analysis for the Religion Monitor reveals that Spain displays the highest degree of polarization between secularist groups and “dogmatic religious groups” in Europe (Pickel 2013, 13): Only a small group of believers are considered “dogmatic” as they tend to believe they are the only ones to be saved (10% of Spanish Catholics, Pickel 2013, 35). This helps us understand why anti-gender activists only represent a minority of the general population. Pickel’s report also confirms that secular values are widely accepted: According to most Spaniards, politics and state must be secular, with a clear differentiation between politics and religion and without religious leaders influencing government decisions (Pickel 2013, 26). In this scenario, the high level of religious polarization also explains why dogmatic minorities ultimately adopted extremist positions.
In sum, Spain can be described as a society that is in large measure indifferent to the Catholic Church, and where religion seems to be a matter of little concern in daily life, values or politics. Yet, the Church remains a relevant political actor. In 1979, an agreement was signed with the Holy See which grants the Catholic Church rights and privileges in four major areas: partial legal autonomy; education; cultural heritage; and public financial support and Catholic assistance in the armed forces, hospitals and prisons (Moran 1995, 535).6 This state-sanctioned special treatment, which has been maintained under all democratic governments, does not however reflect public attitudes towards Catholicism, but it highlights the strong interest of the bishops and the dogmatic minority in re-Christianizing society and public policies (De Andres 2013). As other international cases also reveal, the intent to combat secularism has turned gender issues in a crucial battlefield (Paternotte 2015).
The term “gender ideology” appeared for the first time in a document of the Spanish Catholic Church in 2001. In a Pastoral Instruction entitled The family, sanctuary of life and hope of society, bishops denounced attempts to present sexual differences as a mere cultural product, allegedly made in the interests of the gay lobby and radical feminists in order to confuse teenagers and liberate women (CEE 2001, §34). While the topic has been discussed in Catholic media since then, it did not make its way into mainstream media until the mid-2000s, when José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero became prime minister.
In his inaugural speech, Zapatero announced his intention to legalize same-sex marriage and to implement far-reaching gender equality reforms, which were turned into one of the flagships of his mandate (Rodríguez-Zapatero 2004, 18). These brought a wave of hostile reactions from conservative parties and the Church. In the following months, the CEE, headed by the Archbishop of Madrid Cardinal Rouco Varela, launched a media campaign against these reforms. To give a few examples, the CEE spokesman, Mgr Martinez Camino, stated that same-sex marriage was like releasing a virus into society,7 while Mgr Amigo, the archbishop of Seville, described same-sex marriage as a Trojan horse hiding a conspiracy against Christians.8 From this point onwards, the “gender ideology” terminology became central in the discourse of Catholic Church officials and was picked up by a handful of radical right-wing activists. There were three waves of anti-gender mobilizations (2005, 2008–2009, 2012), which correspond with the timing of legal reforms adopted in Spain in the past ten years.9
Four types of anti-gender activists can be identified in Spain: the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, traditional anti-abortion associations, a new neo-conservative lobby and radical right-wing parties. These groups differ in nature, social and political position, use of resources and strategies, but they all share a family resemblance in their radical and unyielding agenda against same-sex marriage, abortion, gender and sex education, same-sex adoption, reproductive technologies, surrogacy, gender violence, trans issues (especially in public health services) and even the presence of gender studies in public universities.
Occasionally, the Right-moderate PP has allied with these groups, especially under Zapatero’s government (2004–2011). Conversely, ultra-conservative Catholics supported the PP’s electoral campaign for the national elections in 2011 (allowing this party to win an absolute parliamentary majority), but their paths diverged and a more conservative party, Vox, splintered from the PP in 2013.
As the Spanish state has traditionally accorded a special treatment to the Church, the CEE is usually considered as one of the most powerful lobbies in the country. The media pays great attention to its statements, especially if they are polemic, and changes in Church leadership influence general political debates. However, this influence is limited because the activation of the religious identity cleavage only affects a small part of society, mainly regular churchgoers (13.3% of Spaniards), while other Catholics do not follow the doctrine or bishops’ opinions.10
Furthermore, the election of Pope Francis has heralded some changes in the Spanish Church. In 2014, the controversial Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, president of the CEE since 2008, was replaced by Mgr Ricardo Blazquez. The former president Rouco Varela (now emeritus archbishop of Madrid) had been a vigorous opponent of gender policies, and one of the instigators of both the largest demonstrations against same-sex marriage and the mass meetings in defence of the family. He also publicly aligned against Pope Francis on the occasion of the two Synods on the Family.11 Yet it was the supposedly moderate Mgr Blazquez who chaired the CEE during its most intense period of anti-gender activism (2005–2008), when some of the most important doctrinal documents were published in this regard.12
Some bishops also became celebrities of anti-gender activism because of their homophobic and anti-feminist rhetoric. The archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal Cañizares, has been formally accused by the Valencian attorney for hate crime against gays and women in 2016.13 The bishop of Alcalá, Juan Antonio Reig Pla, who chaired the CEE’s Family and Life subcommission and contributed to the Lexicon of the Family, faced a legal challenge for comparing feminism to Nazism in 2014.14 The archbishop of Granada, Francisco Javier Martínez, was also accused of inciting gender violence by the Attorney General’s office of Granada for the publication of the Spanish edition of Constanza Miriano’s Get Married and Be Submissive.15 Finally, Bishops José Ignacio Munilla and Demetrio Fernández, respectively of San Sebastián and Córdoba, have also made numerous homophobic and sexist declarations and frequently joined “pro-family” events.
Until now, the accusations of hate speech or discrimination by churchmen have always been dismissed or settled without punishment in the courts based on the right to religious freedom. This judicial interpretation allows churchmen to produce public hate speech without legal, political or economic consequences, while discouraging feminist and LGBT activists from bringing legal actions. While lay activists are cautious to prevent possible legal actions, churchmen can be more offensive. At the same time, Spaniards are their captive audience, for example, during milestone rites of passage, which are present in many cultural groups and are important for the social life of individuals. Baptisms, first communions, funerals and local and traditional rituals are still monopolized by the Catholic Church, and LGBT people have to comply with their representatives if they want to take part in them (Stéfano Barbero and Pichardo 2016).
Founded in 2000, the FEF is a network of more than 5,000 different associations claiming to represent “over 4 million Spanish families”.16 Though it emphasizes a non-religious approach to family, the most influential associations in the FEF are explicitly or implicitly Catholic. Members include the Asociación Católica de Propagandistas (Catholic Association of Propagandists), the Asociación Católica de Farmacéuticos (Spanish Association of Catholic Apothecaries), the Confederación Católica de Padres (Catholic Confederation of Parents), the Asociación para la Objeción de Conciencia (Association for Conscientious Objection), the Instituto de Vida Familiar – S.O.S Familia (Family Life Institute-S.O.S. Family) and the Formadores de planificación de la familia natural (Teachers of Natural Family Planning). It also includes specifically religious groups such as the Legionaries of Christ and its lay branch Regnum Christi (represented by foundations such as Altius, Dif), as well as individuals belonging to groups like the Fundación Más Humano (Foundation More Human) and the Opus Dei (represented by Evangelium Vitae and Fundación Familia, Sociedad y Educación [Foundation Family, Society and Education]). The president of the FEF, Benigno Blanco, is a well-known Opus supernumerary.
The FEF’s missions include the defense of family using the terminological toolkit of the Catholic Church (including “gender ideology”), the defense of marriage as an “essential” institution (which implies opposing same-sex marriage), the defense of human life as “inseparable from the family” (therefore opposing feminism in general and abortion in particular) and the defense of “the right of parents to educate their children in freedom” (opposing gender and sex education in schools).
Although it often uses defensive language, the FEF proclaims that it attempts “to propose and communicate family policies to political parties”, revealing its aim to influence public policy. According to its online presentation, its “way of doing things” includes the promotion of specific actions “which have a social and public resonance, such as signing petitions or large demonstrations … to provoke debate and to appeal to the collective conscience”.17
In 2005, the FEF launched two major campaigns aimed at shifting public opinion. The first one, No es Igual (It is not the same), was directed against same-sex marriage. It included an Iniciativa Legislativa Popular (Popular Legislative Initiative) to change the Family Code and to block the proposed reform with the support of the PP. The FEF mobilized more than 7,000 volunteers in 33 cities, collecting more than a million signatures. On 18 July 2005, the FEF organized a large demonstration in Madrid under the slogan “Family Does Matter” with the support and attendance of members of the PP. This demonstration was followed by an enormous public mass performed by the leading authorities of the CEE and organized by Kiko Argüello, the founder of the Neocatechumenal Way. Participation was high (166,000 attendees according to government figures, 200,000 according to El País and one million according to event organizers18). The FEF promoted the event with a radio commercial on the COPE (the CEE-owned radio network), a video broadcast on PopularTV and a banner published in the conservative newspaper La Razón for four days. According to their own report, the FEF was mentioned 1,338 times in the press, including on CNN, BBC, Fox and other international media.
The FEF carried out a second campaign against Zapatero’s Law on Education in the same year, with a demonstration held in Madrid on 12 November 2005 under the slogan “For Quality Education in Freedom”. This was led by the Catholic parents’ association CONCAPA. Again, a large crowd participated to the rally (407,000 people according to police figures, 375,000 according to El País, 1.5 million according to the conservative regional government and two million according to event organizers19), and the event was supported by the PP and the CEE (with four bishops and numerous priests attending).20 This campaign achieved 2,613 references in the national press.
The activities of the FEF continued for some years with a lower impact, but its public prominence during 2005 developed its profile and won it new associates. In 2009, when Zapatero announced a new law on abortion, the FEF returned to the frontline of public mobilization with a new demonstration held in Madrid on 17 October 2009. The demonstration was again supported by the PP and CEE,21 but the media impact was lower, with only 300 references in the national and international press (according to the FEF annual report for 2009). This and other minor campaigns were usually reinforced with petitions.
The FEF regards as its most important contribution to society the training of its members as defenders of the family by “helping them to strengthen and defend their convictions”. They claim not to be a “generator of activists”, but a “group of people who are trained to speak knowledgeably and positively about the family”.22 In this vein, a great amount of FEF’s economic and human resources are invested in conferences and training activities, including online and conventional media ideological communication. According to its annual reports,23 they hold an average of 122 conferences per year (209 in 2010, 63 in 2013). These are generally organized during periods of low mobilization.24
HO is the organization leading a range of specialized initiatives operating as a combined front against gender policies, sexual rights and other issues on the Catholic and radical right-wing agenda. The organization was established in 2001, when a group of friends linked to an American neoconservative think-tank, the Phoenix Institute, launched a “citizen alert” via mobile phones to demand “a comprehensive family policy” from President Aznar. The organization currently claims to comprise 520,103 “active citizens”, and almost 50,000 Facebook likes. According to the HO website, it remained a “friends’ initiative” during its first three years, but transformed into a professional organization after Zapatero’s election. At that time, HO opposed the same-sex marriage bill through a Popular Legislative Initiative (matrimoniosi.hazteoir.org), which was in fact coordinated by the FEF.
From 2005 to 2009, HO continued to work in broader FEF-led campaigns while starting its own campaigning. In 2005, it combatted the recognition of same-sex couples’ rights by the European Union with the Europa así no (Europe, not like this!) campaign. In 2006, it initiated a campaign against gender education at schools and launched the platform ChequeEscolar.org. In 2009, HO created the anti-abortion platform DerechoAVivir.org (Right to Life) as a new brand to gain visibility in the FEF-organized anti-abortion march in Madrid. During the preparation for the demonstration, some FEF members expressed their discontent with HO for attempting to co-opt and seize control of the whole pro-family movement for the sole benefit of its public image. HO was then forced to abandon the FEF to start its own political path.25
In 2011, HO created the platform MasLibres.org (More Free) in defense of Catholic interests, with a special emphasis on Islam and atheism. In 2014, HO started the campaign #YoRompoConRajoy (“I’m done with Rajoy”26), hounding the PP with mass telephone call campaigns to protest against its tolerance about egalitarian marriage and abortion, among other issues. It subsequently supported the newly created party Vox. In 2015, it publicly attacked the PP candidate for the Presidency of the Community of Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes. Making a final break with moderate conservatism, HO members put banners, bus signs and posters all around the city with the slogan “A vote for Cifuentes is a vote for abortion”.27 This campaign was a failure, as Cifuentes won more votes than the mayoral candidate Esperanza Aguirre (also a member of the PP, who was not boycotted by HO).
This group has developed a complex network of alliances, both nationally and internationally. Ignacio Arsuaga, the organization’s chair (and a nephew of Rodrigo Rato, former managing director of the IMF), was a member of the Phoenix Institute, whose more prominent members in Spain are linked to the ultra-conservative multimedia group Intereconomia and the Asociación Católica de Propagandistas (which owns several Catholic universities). Another board member, Alex Rosal, is the former head of the CEE’s Information Office and the current director of the website Religión en Libertad (Religion in Freedom), as well as the chairman of Fundación Nueva Evangelización para el Siglo XXI (New Evangelization for the 21th Century Foundation), and of Grupo Libres (Free Ones Group). Known as a member of Regnum Christi, he recently declared he has joined the Charismatic Renewal. He also enthusiastically backs the Legionaries of Christ.28
Although they have always denied it, several members of HO have also been formally accused of belonging to the secret society El Yunque, a paramilitary society created in Mexico in 1955. In Spain, this society was accused of being a sect and of recruiting adolescents.29 This connection was a source of concern for several bishops, and the Catholic press warned Catholics not to trust HO.30 Critics pointed out that the former president of the CEE, Rouco Varela, had previously supported El Yunque and its activities.
Finally, HO has placed great emphasis on its international activism. It is known internationally for the platform CitizenGo.org. Created in 2013, the platform currently claims 2,943,630 followers worldwide and is available in numerous languages.31 HO also organized the 2012 edition of the World Congress of Families (WCF) in Madrid, and partnered subsequent editions of the WCF, becoming the only Spanish association and one of the few Europeans acknowledged as a supporter. As a result, Ignacio Arsuaga was granted the first Natural Family Man and Woman of the Year Award in Sydney in 2013 and delivered a keynote in Salt Lake City in 2015.
The emphasis on international networking has continued until today. HO took part in the Global Marriage Forum held in 2014 in Washington by the International Organization for Marriage (launched by the US National Organization for Marriage) and the European Advocacy Academy (convened in 2014 by European Dignity Watch). It has also invited Ludovine de la Rochere as a speaker when the French leader travelled to Spain to support the FEF-held Cada vida importa (Every Life Matters) demonstration in 2014.
On 3 December 2014, HO invited five political parties with anti-abortion policies to a political debate held at its headquarters. Moderated by Ignacio Arsuaga, it featured representatives from Vox, Alternativa Española (AES, Spanish Alternative), Comunión Tradicionalista Carlista (CTC, Carlist Traditional Communion), Partido Familia y Vida (FyV, Family and Life Party) and Solidaridad y Autogestión Internacionalista (SAIN, Internationalist Self-management and Solidarity), which ultimately refused to participate.32 Other right-wing parties have resisted a fuller decriminalization of abortion,33 but these (with the exception of SAIN) are the only ones that have consistently and clearly opposed both gender and abortion. The most important difference, however, lies in realpolitik. Moderate parties are part of national and regional governments, are bigger and present a greater internal diversity, while radical parties are small and have no representation in formal institutions, which allows them to adopt more radical positions on controversial issues.
The landscape of anti-gender discourse in political parties changed significantly when the PP entered government in 2011. Until then, the PP had maintained a common radical position against Zapatero’s gender policy, actively participated in the protests organized by FEF and associated groups, and won the support of anti-gender activists during the 2011 elections.
In line with this, the PP initiated two major counter-reforms during its first years back in government. In 2013, it amended the previous education law and eliminated the school subject of Education for Citizenship and Human Rights, granting religion the same level of curricular importance as other subjects. This reform also allowed access to public funding for private schools where boys and girls are educated separately. Although this initiative encountered widespread popular and political opposition, it was the only one that was eventually passed.
The second major initiative, launched in 2014, attempted to reform the 2010 Abortion Law – a move that met with strong resistance in the streets, in the media and even within the PP. The first draft of the law included the abolition of abortion, following the demands of the most radical anti-abortion groups. A highly diluted text was adopted in 2015, resulting in minor amendments to the 2010 law, which frustrated the demands of anti-abortion groups.
The PP also refused to repeal the law permitting same-sex marriage. Prime Minister Rajoy even attended the wedding of an openly gay party vice secretary, Javier Maroto, in 2015. By doing so, the PP marked its distance from the most radical anti-gender activists publicly. If the PP had been part of anti-gender activism prior to 2012, it moved towards the centre of the political spectrum when they entered government.
In this context, only four anti-gender political parties can be identified (CTC, FyV, AES and Vox), and have no representation in regional, national or European parliaments. This low representation provides us with an explanation for the low impact of anti-gender activism on the electoral scenario.34
The most significant of these four parties are Alternativa Española (AES) and Vox. A proud supporter of the Francoist regime, Alternativa Española (AES) was founded in 2003 as a reaction to the alleged betrayal of Catholic voters by the PP.35 It displays interesting European alliances: AES was backed by the British Conservative Party for the 2009 European elections and won the vote of some British residents.36 Later, during the 2014 European elections, it joined Impulso Social, backed by Marine Le Pen’s Front National. Despite these alliances, its results were worse than in 2009 (17,774 votes, 0.11% of total votes).
The other leading party is Vox, founded in 2013 by ex-members of the PP and supported by disillusioned PP voters.37 HO was one of Vox’s main supporters in the last electoral campaigns (2014, 2015), presenting it as the only party that could have passed all the questions of its voting guide, followed by Ciudadanos and, far behind them, by the PP.38 According to this voting guide, Vox is economically liberal, morally conservative, Church-friendly and strongly Spanish nationalist. It also provided responses on ethical issues in line with the anti-gender movement. It recently allied with Familia y Vida, gaining the sympathy of most Catholic media.39
Our analysis of anti-gender activism in Spain has shown that actors share the same confrontation pattern. While they opposed the socialist government during the first stages of mobilization (between 2004 and 2011), they confronted their former political ally in the streets, in the media and in the elections when the moderate-conservative PP came back to power in 2011. Even if the Foro Español de la Familia has devoted resources and efforts to information campaigns promoting a renewed Catholic framework on gender and sexuality issues, other strategies like demonstrations, homophobic and misogynistic statements gained more media attention. Reaction is at the core of these strategies, which have mostly been attempts to oppose progressive reforms and have followed the rhythm imposed by state reforms, as exemplified by street demonstrations.
At the end of this chapter, a central question remains: Why have these efforts, well aligned with the Catholic doctrine and supported by the Church, achieved only such a limited influence? As developed in this chapter, we argue that these efforts have failed because the general strategy of confrontation adopted by these actors led to a split between radicals and moderates, which negatively affects the reputation, legitimacy and effectiveness of the demands and profile of the radical wing. This is what Haines has described as a radical flank effect (Haines 2013).
Applying the radical flank effect thesis to our case requires the presence of a real or perceived ideological minority. As set out in the description of the Spanish context, the adherence of Catholic Spaniards to the official doctrine is low and, at the same time, public opinion is highly supportive of the separation of Church and state. Considering the data available, we estimate that the anti-gender movement is socially made up of the confluence of 10% of “dogmatic Catholics” (Pickel 2013, 35) and an unknown proportion of the 14% regular Church attendees (CIS 2015a). This is a clear ideological minority: Though it was able to mobilize thousands of people in the streets, it has obtained disappointing and insignificant electoral results.
Furthermore, opposing the socialist government in 2004 garnered some sympathy from the moderate right wing of the PP, which took advantage of the radicals’ mobilization and supported them. However, after the PP came back to power, it did no longer support radical fringes, which then pursued their own strategy of confrontation against their former allies. Anti-gender activists started to attack both the policies and the candidates of the PP and started to endorse other political parties. Until now, however, they have had no significant impact on decision-making and public policy, and Spanish moderates and average Catholics often dismiss them as fanatics.
Finally, the cultural and historical context plays a crucial role. In Spain, like in other countries, these activists are ideologically guided by the Church. But the damaged image of the Spanish Church because of its role during the dictatorship impedes turning a Catholic identity into a political and electoral asset, as shown by the poor results of the anti-gender parties. During the transition from dictatorship to democracy, the Spanish Church has avoided supporting concrete political parties, not shaking the religious motivation of the voters (Collado Seidel and Duato 2007), and the surveys on Church-state separation confirm that this conviction is still strong. Since 2004, anti-gender activists have tried to transform the relations between Church and state by forming religious parties, using Church media and resources and urging bishops to join them. Average Spaniards are, however, well aware of the close relationship between the institutional Catholic Church and the Spanish right wing, and, despite the ability of Catholic clerics and lay people to mobilize a huge social base, the activation of the religious cleavage has failed. This leads to two major consequences. Catholic identity remains an inactive political asset when connected to gender,40 and anti-gender actors appear as a small and isolated group of doctrinaire ultra-conservatives.
In conclusion, the strategy of the Catholic hierarchy and its lay allies, including traditional associations, new cyber lobbies and political parties, has not been met with success. The reasons do not merely relate to poor strategic choices but also refer to the evolution of relationships among actors, their changing positions, as well as the management of confrontation and religious belligerence in a tolerant society, where secular values and popular scepticism about the Church cohabit with a non-dogmatic (and somewhat anticlerical) form of Catholicism.
1.According to the reports of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS, Centre for Sociological Investigations), in 2004 66.2% of Spaniards agreed with same-sex marriage and 26.5% disagreed (CIS 2004). Eleven years after, in 2015, 63.6% of Spaniards agreed with same-sex marriage and 22.3% disagreed (CIS 2015b).
2.According to a Pew Research Center’s report (2011), Spain is the fourth European country in terms of size of Catholic population, after Italy, France and Poland.
3.According to data from the European Values Survey (EVS) for 2008, on a scale of one to ten, the average acceptance of divorce in Spain is 6.9, in contrast to lower averages for Italy (4.7 of the same scale), Ireland (5.3), Poland (4.5) and France (6.6). The trend can be found on other topics except for abortion, since France is more tolerant on this issue (average of 6) than Spain (4.9), which is in turn more tolerant than Italy, Ireland or Poland. For further details: Bericat (2015), Collado Seidel and Duato (2007).
4.BBC Mundo (2014).
5.Political and revolutionary anticlericalism has been central in Spanish history, especially under the Second Republic, when clergymen, nuns, sacred places and objects were violently attacked and profaned (De la Cueva 1998). Such revolutionary anticlericalism does no longer exist, but many anthropological studies reveal the persistence of a latent anticlericalism as a part of Spanish Catholic culture (Álvarez Santaló, Rey and Becerra 2003; Behar 1990; Christian 1996; Cornejo Valle 2008; Delgado 1992, 1993, 2001; Maddox 1995).
6.Since 1992, similar rights have been extended to the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, Evangelical Religious Entities and the Spanish Islamic Commission. However, these agreements differ from the Catholic convention, as the latter is an international treaty signed with a foreign state while the agreements with other religious communities are ordinary national laws.
7.ABC (2004).
8.ABC Sevilla (2005).
9.These are: the Law 13/2005, amending the Civil Code to legalize same-sex marriage; the Education Law 2/2006, including sex education, gender equality, family diversity and the fight against homophobia; the Sexual and Reproductive Health Law 2/2010, with a new regulation for abortion; the Law for the Improvement of Education 8/2013, increasing the curricular status of “religion” as a course in public schools; and a Bill of Law (20/12/2013) for the “protection of the life of the unborn and the rights of pregnant women”, which would have left the final decision to abort in the hands of doctors and reduced the scope of legal abortion. This bill was withdrawn in 2015.
10.For a different point of view, see Montero et al. (2008).
11.Rouco Varela has contributed to the book Eleven Cardinals Talk about Marriage and Family, which is a conservative attempt to influence the Synods on the Family (Aymans 2015). For further information about Rouco Varela, see Vidal (2014).
12.Such as Acerca de la objeción de conciencia ante una ley radicalmente injusta que corrompe la institución del matrimonio (CEE 2005a); La familia sí importa (CEE 2005b); Grave preocupación por la LOE enmendada (CEE 2005c); La Ley Orgánica de Educación (LOE), los reales decretos que la desarrollan y los derechos fundamentales de padres y escuelas (CEE 2007).
13.Ochando (2016).
14.La Sexta (2014).
15.Cano (2014).
16.Foro Español de la Familia (2015).
17.Foro Español de la Familia (2009).
18.Arroyo (2005).
19.Perez de Pablos (2005).
20.El Mundo (2005).
21.250,000 attendees according to the police, 1.2 million according to Madrid’s conservative regional government and two million according to the organizers (Ceberio Belaza 2015).
22.Quoted in the FEF’s website, http://www.forofamilia.org/nosotros/quienes-somos/el-foro/ (11 Accessed December 2015).
23.Available online in http://www.forofamilia.org.
24.For further analysis, see Aguilar (2010, 2011, 2013), as well as Limon (2013).
25.El Mundo (2005) and Paradinas (2014).
26.Rajoy was the PP’s candidate for a new term as prime minister.
27.The electoral authorities banned the campaign at the request of the PP (“La junta electoral” La Gaceta 2015a).
28.Alex Rosal interviewed by Infovaticana (Ariza 2014).
29.López Luengos (2010), and Lobo (2012, 2014).
30.ABC Toledo (2015).
31.The members of its board of trustees include leading international figures such as Luca Volontè and Brian Brown. Ignacio Arsuaga and Alvaro Zulueta are both known internationally.
32.HazteOir.org (2014).
33.Some PP members and some nationalist Christian Democrats from the Basque Country (PNV) and Catalonia (CIU).
34.According official data by Ministerio de Interior (available on http://interior.gob.es), Vox won 1.56% of the votes in the 2014 European elections.
35.Vaquero Oroquieta “Entrevista a Rafael”.
36.Hannan (2009).
37.The former president and other founders include prominent PP members such as Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Jose Antonio Ortega-Lara and Santiago Abascal.
38.VotaValores (2015).
39.Ariza (2015) and Religión en Libertad (2015).
40.For a different point of view about the religious vote in Spain see Montero et al. (2008).
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