Chill Pope Not Always Chill, Successfully Urges Slovenian Voters to Overturn Gay Marriage 

Slovenia has voted to overturn a law that would have given same-sex couples the ability to marry and adopt children. That’s after none other than Our Problematic Fave Pope Francis weighed in, telling Slovenian pilgrims days before the vote that the country had to “to support the family, a structural reference point for the life of society.”

Slovenia is overwhelmingly Catholic, but its National Assembly nonetheless managed to pass a law in March redefining marriage as between “two consenting adults,” rather than between a man and a woman. The bill was overturned in a ballot referendum vote on Sunday, with 63.4 percent of voter rejecting the law.

The anti-same sex marriage push was largely sponsored by a Catholic group calling itself For Children; Reuters reports that the group wrote on their site, “We are against the law that would deny the basic right of a child to have a mother and a father.”

In Vatican City, Pope Francis obliquely told Slovenian pilgrims to vote against same-sex marriage, as Agence France Presse reported, telling them that everyone, “especially those with public responsibility, [should] support the family, a structural reference point for the life of society.”

Reuters calls Slovenia “relatively tolerant” of homosexuality, saying gay couples have been able to “formally register their relationship” since 2006, and that same-sex spouses can adopt their partner’s children from a previous relationship, although they can’t adopt other kids.

Earlier this year, during his trip the United States, Pope Francis met briefly with both Kim Davis and a gay couple. But in October, the celibate senior citizen stressed that the “true meaning of the couple and of human sexuality in God’s plan” is heterosexual marriage.

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Image via AP.