Here in the US, it appears we've gone a lot further than Spain.
Sad but true
Perhaps in some respects, but I have hope. From the article:
The Pope said the politics of the Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, were "promoting disdain towards religion".
I don't believe that our President is promoting disdain towards religion, quite the contrary. And our nation is better and stronger because of it.
The Pope criticised initiatives of Mr Zapatero, such as his plans to make religious education in state schools voluntary by allowing students to replace religion with a civics course.
In this matter I would agree...we have gone much further than Spain and we have suffered, as a culture, from having religion entirely removed from schools.
Other new laws will allow marriage between homosexuals, make divorce and abortion easier and permit stem cell research.
On these points I would suggest that we are still not so bad, in that we have managed to thwart (for the moment) any national acceptance of 'marriage' between homosexuals. Abortion and divorce are far too easy here I grant you, but I feel a great resistance to the status quo and no serious threat to make them any easier. Stem cell research has, I believe, been largely limited to sources other than the fetal stem cells. I may be wrong and I know that what we already have is problematic because it represents a 'slippery slope' toward fetal stem cell research.
All in all, I will agree with you that in some areas we have indeed gone further in the wrong direction than Spain, but wouldn't you say that there's reason to have hope?
-Popular Party leader in the Northern Spanish state of Galicia.