Swiss to vote on marriage for everyone
In a referendum scheduled for September 26, the Swiss will vote on "marriage for everyone". At the end of 2020 the Swiss parliament approved legislation allowing civil marriages for gay couples as well as adoption and artificial insemination through sperm donation for lesbian couples, but a cross-party committee wants to overturn the decision in the referendum. The Swiss Bishops' Conference is also a member of the committee.
Marriage for all but without children
Tolerance reaches its limits when it comes to conceiving children, writes Protestant pastor Josef Hochstrasser in a guest commentary for the Luzerner Zeitung:
“Two people who want to form a partnership should be legally recognised by the state as a married couple and married by the churches without restrictions - regardless of their sexual orientation. ... But while I support marriage for all, I reject sperm donation for lesbian couples. ... Nature has made no provisions for two female creatures to reproduce without male intervention. ... Nature is degenerating into an object manipulated by technicians. They trick nature and act as if they were the pride of creation, which is never the right of humankind.”
Church putting itself on the sidelines
The Bible no longer serves as moral guide for society, Blick argues:
“From a biblical perspective, marriage is still considered a 'natural partnership between a man and a woman'. It's just that in the life of 21st-century individuals there is not much that is 'natural' any more. ... Many things that were common when the Bible was put down on parchment are done differently today. ... The Church can and may cling to its traditions - but in doing so it moves further and further away from today's society and cultivates old feelings of resentment. Perhaps it should bear this in mind: as we all know, those who refuse to change with the times disappear with time.”