Source: AP via Canadian Press
MADRID, Spain (AP) A generation ago, traditional families were sacred in Spain. Gen. Francisco Franco liked them big and Catholic and gave hefty cash prizes to parents with the most copious broods.

These days, a civics course in Spain's public schools teaches that modern families can be quite different - single parents with kids or same-sex couples raising adopted children.

This and a host of other social reforms have given traditionally Catholic Spain a striking new look and, while the clergy is fighting the changes, the general public seems to be taking them in its stride.

The democratic society that has gradually evolved since Franco died in 1975 shows striking tolerance for homosexuality. For instance, in a media campaign last year to fight AIDS by encouraging condom use, one of the participants was Fernando Grande-Marlaska, a prominent judge on Spain's main terrorism court, who is openly gay.

One sign that society is at ease with gay rights is that it's not much of an issue in next month's election. Ramon Cotarelo, who teaches at Complutense University in Madrid, said the changes have probably not angered many moderate conservatives, a key consideration in a race where centrist votes are crucial.

Spain is one of the few countries that grant full legal status to same-sex couples, including adoption rights. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose Socialist government enacted many of the changes, also engineered a law granting financial aid to families caring for handicapped or elderly relatives, granted amnesty to 600,000 undocumented aliens and created special courts to prosecute spousal violence.

Half the members of Zapatero's cabinet and half the Socialist candidates running for legislative seats in elections March 9 are women.

All this is in stunning contrast to the conservative society forged under Franco's dictatorship and it is seen by political scientist Cotarelo as a reaction to having spent nearly four decades feeling like the continent's repressed, backward cousin.

Instead, alongside worries about renewed Basque separatist violence, it's the economy, estupido, with inflation above four per cent, skyrocketing mortgage interest rates and a general sense that one of Europe's top-tier economies is cooling.

These are the issues that are giving Zapatero a tough run for a second term. The Socialists and the conservative Popular Party, which Zapatero unseated in 2004 are running neck-and-neck in opinion polls.

The area in which Zapatero decisively outpolls his Popular Party challenger, Mariano Rajoy, is social reform, and Zapatero capitalizes on it.

Full article: Changing Spain takes fast-track divorce, same-sex marriage in stride | Canadian Press