Spain’s Popular Party was elected late last year in a landslide and they are already working to reverse the many progressive reforms made by the Socialists. Gay marriage isn’t yet openly up for repeal, but observers worry that day is coming soon.

People’s Party rising star Justice Minister Alberto Ruíz Gallardón, a former mayor of Madrid and one of the most popular politicians in Spain, announced he would soon introduce a bill to overturn the changes the Socialists made to Spain’s abortion law, reverting to the 1985 version.

According to the current version, approved in 2010, teenagers aged 16 and older can have an abortion without parental permission in some cases and don’t need to meet pre-approved circumstances, such as rape or mental illness, as long as it’s during the first trimester. The People’s Party’s reforms will reverse both changes, Mr. Gallardón reiterated in a radio interview on Feb. 1, although he didn’t offer specifics other than it would mirror the 1985 version of the law.

And on Jan. 30, Education Minister José Ignacio Wert announced that a new law would replace the civic education curriculum that Socialist introduced in 2006, which included lessons on religious, racial, and sexual tolerance that were loudly criticized by the Catholic Church and the country’s extreme right. Mr. Wert said he would eliminate “issues that controversial and susceptible to ideological indoctrination,” although he didn’t offer more details.

Next month’s general elections threaten to undo Spain’s 6-year-old gay marriage law.
The Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, which swept into office in 2004, looks to be on the outs. Polling shows the conservative Popular Party (PP) with a 15-point lead over Socialists.
Zapatero’s government legalized gay marriage over the objections of the Catholic Church and the PP, which filed a legal challenged to the law based on technical grounds.
Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the PP, has previously said he believes the law is unconstitutional and that he would “change” it even if the nation’s highest court ruled it constitutional.
“I will listen to the court, but I don’t like the fact that there is gay marriage and I don’t think it is constitutional,” he told daily El Pais. “What I don’t like is the word ‘marriage.’”
While repeal of the law seems doubtful, gay and lesbian couples in the country are taking the threat seriously. In the past several months, a sharp uptick in the number of couples marrying has been reported in the Spanish press.