Sinful Society

MADRID, Spain — A journalist on Friday defended the accuracy of a book in which she quotes Spain's Queen Sofia as criticizing the country's legalization of gay marriage, dragging the normally tightlipped monarchy into a rare public spat.

Spain's king and queen are largely respected as figurehead representatives of the state, and rarely speak out on political or social issues.

So much of Spain is feasting on this incident, in which one of the monarchs has expressed an opinion in public on a sensitive topic and the Royal Palace has challenged what the queen is alleged to have said.

Urbano released the book — "La Reina muy de cerca," or "The Queen, very close up," — this week to mark the queen's 70th birthday on Sunday.

The journalist said it was based on 15 interviews with Queen Sofia, and that the Royal Palace approved the book's galley proofs before it was published, according to news agency Efe.

"I do not answer to the queen or king, or the Royal Palace. I answer to the truth," Urbano told Efe.

In the book, the queen is quoted as addressing a wide range of issues and saying she opposes abortion and euthanasia. Spain allows the former under restricted circumstances, and outlaws the latter. But the queen's alleged remarks on same-sex marriage are the main source of friction and have angered gay rights groups.

Spain legalized gay marriage in 2005, becoming one of the few countries in the world to recognize same-sex couples as having the same rights as heterosexual ones, including the right to adopt children.

"If those persons want to live together, dress up as bride and groom and get married, they can do so, but that should not be called marriage because it is not," the queen is quoted as saying in Urbano's book.

Late Thursday, the Royal Palace issued a statement saying comments attributed to the monarch "do not correspond exactly" with what she said. Furthermore, it said, the queen's comments were made "on a private basis," and the book fails to reflect the queen's respect for people who suffer discrimination, such as homosexuals.

Conservative newspaper El Mundo said the queen erred by breaking with her tradition of quiet neutrality.

"As human as this burst of royal sincerity might be, certainly there were better ways to make Queen Sofia's birthday a new tool for bringing society closer to the throne," it said in an editorial.

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:" Rom 1:26