“People should be allowed to sleep with whom they choose”

SPAIN'S Defence Minister José Bono, yesterday defended the government's controversial homosexual marriage law and called on the conservative Partido Popular “to let people sleep with whom they wish... it's only natural.” Bono was in Palma yesterday to visit the General Asensio barracks and unveil development plans for the old Ses Busquets military base along the Valldemossa road. However, emerging from talks with the governor general of the Balearics, Ramón Socias, the Defence Minister was asked to comment on this Saturday's “pro-family values” march in Madrid which has the full backing of the PP and the Catholic church. Bono, pointing out that he is a Christian, claimed in reply that “if Christ was alive today, he would be much more worried about the 25'000 children who die every day from hunger than who his neighbour was sleeping with.” Bono said that the PP will have their chance to voice their opposition to the law when the bill to allow same sex marriage goes before parliament on June 18 but pointed out that some of the opponents were against changing the divorce law. “And some of the more vocal have since got divorced three or four times.” He added that people should be allowed to sleep with whom they wish “not with whom the PP chooses. “Each person has the sexuality he or she chooses and we should not try and impose on anyone how they should sexually behave and I think the majority of Spain agrees,” he added. The Socialist government's same sex marriage bill, which looks set to become law later this month, is the most controversial bill Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his government have drawn up since coming to power in March last year. It has angered the Vatican and prompted the Spanish Family Forum to organise a massive protest march in Madrid this weekend.