On the heels of [1] the no vote in New Jersey (where they only needed 4 or 5 more votes in the Senate), little by little, the objections to same-gender legal marriage continue to wither in other countries. This past week, the Parliament of Portugal voted to permit gay marriage, [2] according to an Associated Press story.

This unites the Iberian peninsula, because Spain already did this five years ago. Although both are heavily Roman Catholic countries, they have not fallen off into the Atlantic for their left-leaning liberalism! At what point will the international change reach a tipping point for the United States too? Why are we so, well, anal?

Last summer, according to the [3] Huffington Post, Portugal’s highest Constitutional Court upheld a ban on same-sex marriage and rejected a suit by two lesbians, Teresa Pires and Helena Paixao. the high court considered the appeal brought from a lower court, and “the Constitutional Court said in a statement posted on its Web site that the constitution does not state that same-sex marriages must be permitted.”

But catch the prophetic outlook of one of the plaintiffs, which seems to anticipate this week’s shift:

The court said the question before it was not whether the constitution allows same-sex marriages, but whether the constitution compels them to be accepted, which it does not.       Paixao told The Associated Press by telephone she regarded the decision as “a victory” because the split decision demonstrated that attitudes are changing in Portugal. “It shows there’s a change coming. Bit by bit people will come around” and accept gay marriage, she said.[4] www.Change.Org carries Michael Jones’ commentary from last Wednesday, “[5] Portugal, Gay Marriage, and a Visit By Pope Benedict XVI“: Prime Minister Socrates made legalizing gay marriage a big component of his re-election campaign last year. When he won, in September, gay marriage activists saw the marriage equality writing on the wall. By the end of this week, the writing may be all over the country’s laws.       Meanwhile, even the Catholic Church is Portugal is sounding a bit conciliatory. Lisbon’s Catholic Cardinal Patriarch Jose Policarpo weighed in and said that same-sex marriage was “parliament’s responsibility,” and not something that Portugal’s Catholic Church should focus on. Ah, would that this philosophy spill over to the U.S. Catholic Church. Instead of leaving marriage up to state legislators, the U.S. Catholic Church gets involved regularly (hello Maine, hello California, hello New Jersey) in the same-sex marriage debate.

Meanwhile, Australian Catholic [6] Cath News notes that the parliament rejects allowing gay couples to adopt children. And further meanwhile, Aljazeera (!) notes that it was as recently as 1982 that homosexuality was a crime in Portugal. Is there any doubt that we are clamoring to a tipping point when (a) decriminalization to legal marriage is only 28 years apart; (b) Aljezeera news carries an objective news story on this without calling for death to the “infidels”?

— Pastor Dan Hooper