Argentina de hoy a la vanguardia gay: escribe su nombre en el mapa en mayúsculas
Gay rights activists celebrate Argentine vote for same-sex marriage
Argentina has become the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage. The Senate approved the new law early Thursday after more than 16 hours of debate.
It was 4:05 a.m. and frigid outside the Congress building in Buenos Aires as Argentine lawmakers voted Thursday to legalize same-sex marriage, but Marcelo Marquez was still there. He had waited through 14 hours of debate for the moment that would make his country the first in overwhelmingly Catholic Latin America to grant gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.
Gay marriage passes last vote in Argentina
"For me, it was incredible," said Marquez, 41, a philosophy teacher who now plans to marry his partner, Mariano Tissone, 37. "Everyone exploded -- screaming, dancing, hugging, some singing the national anthem."
The Senate voted 33 to 27 in favor of the bill, which the lower house had approved in May with strong backing from President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The vote -- which also made Argentina the second country in the Americas, after Canada, to approve marriage for gay men and lesbians -- prompted thousands of supporters to whoop in the streets and shout, "We made history!"
Among them was Marquez, who recounted a long fight for what he called equal rights. "We now have legal recognition, given by the state," he said. "We are so happy that the state did not stop our fight for equality."
Gay rights activists in the region and beyond said Argentina's action would serve as an example. Already, advocates of gay marriage in Chile and Paraguay have said they hope their lawmakers will be spurred to approve similar proposals.
Dan Hawes of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington said the vote in Argentina also gives momentum to gay rights advocates in the United States.
"The victory in Argentina shows those of us in the U.S. who are working for the freedom to marry that with persistence, engaging the public, in making the case why same-sex couples need and deserve the right to marry, that we can continue to advance the freedom to marry," he said by phone Thursday afternoon. "Even in places where the odds are stacked against us."
In Argentina, the Catholic Church had mounted a vigorous campaign to stop the bill. Posters plastered on walls featured a man and a woman cuddling a baby and the admonition, "Kids have a right to a dad and mom." As the debate in the country's ornate, 104-year-old Congress began Wednesday, tens of thousands of people opposed to the legislation prayed and rallied outside.
They were led by Argentina's highest cleric, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who had warned that approving the bill amounted to an "intention to destroy God's plan."
A step for minorities
But what observers had predicted would be a tight vote in the upper house turned out to be not so close.
Sen. Gerardo Morales told other lawmakers that the bill would remedy "a situation of injustice and discrimination toward sectors of the Argentine society who really do not have the guarantee of equal rights as our constitution establishes."
Fernández de Kirchner, speaking from China where she was on a state visit, said she was "very satisfied with the vote."
"To think that 50 years ago women could not vote and that not long ago there was no interracial marriage in the United States," she said in comments carried by La Nación, a Buenos Aires newspaper. "All that has changed. We can think this has been a positive step in defending minority rights."
In Latin America, which is uniformly Catholic and where the church hierarchy is often consulted on major decisions, only Mexico's capital city has approved same-sex marriages. But gay activists have made progress: Colombia's highest court last year gave same-sex partners nearly all the rights found in common-law unions. Uruguay's Congress also recognized same-sex civil unions.
"In some northern countries, they said these advances could never happen in our region," said Marcela Sanchez of Colombia Diversa, an advocacy group on gay issues in the Colombian capital, Bogota. "But now we are seeing movement forward in a number of places."
For American gay rights advocates, the vote in Argentina puts that country of 41 million people ahead of the United States, where voters in California and other states have approved propositions blocking gay unions. Only the District and five states, four of them in New England, have legalized gay marriage.
The right place
In some ways, Argentina seemed a logical choice for the approval of gay marriage.
Though influential, the Catholic Church is not omnipresent in the country, which has long been a magnet for immigrants from around the world, including Jews, Muslims and, a century ago, anarchists who rejected the Vatican.
The Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, is also among the world's most cosmopolitan cities, with numerous bars and hotels catering to gays. The city legalized same-sex unions in 2002, though gays have faced legal obstacles to getting married and only a handful had taken vows.
Nearly 70 percent of Argentines thought it was time to legalize gay marriage, according to a recent poll by the Analogías polling firm. Analía del Franco, the firm's general director, said the country's strong human rights tradition, a product of the fight against a military dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to 1983, had helped propel the gay marriage bill.
"This is something that comes from way back," del Franco said.
washingtonpost.com/wp Foreign Service/July16,2010/Juan Forero & Special correspondent Silvina Frydlewsky in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.
Argentina de ayer: 2009
Gay Marriage in Argentina is 1st in Latin America
TRUTH WINS OUT.ORG/December 29th, 2009/Wayne Besen
Two Argentine men were joined Monday in Latin America’s first same-sex marriage, traveling to the southernmost tip of the Americas to find a welcoming spot to wed. Argentina’s Constitution is silent on whether marriage must be between a man and a woman, effectively leaving the matter to provincial officials.
The ceremony upset the Roman Catholic Church, which had to take a break from its pedophile priest scandal to condemn the love of this happy gay couple.
“The decision took me by surprise and I’m concerned,” Bishop Juan Carlos, of the southern city Rio Gallegos, told an Argentine news agency. He called the marriage “an attack against the survival of the human species.”
I just checked my newspaper and took a walk around the block. Apparently, the human species is still alive and well. I don’t suppose, given the facts, that Gallegos will issue a “correction” for his embarrassingly idiotic statement. In my view, the church is inviting violence against this couple by claiming they will essentially destroy the world.
Same-sex civil unions have been legalized in Uruguay, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and some states in Mexico and Brazil, but marriage generally carries more exclusive rights such as adopting children, inheriting wealth and enabling a partner to gain citizenship.
Only seven countries allow gay marriages: Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. U.S. states that permit same-sex marriage are Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire.
Earlier this month, lawmakers voted to make Mexico City the first in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage. Leftist Mayor Marcelo Ebrard was widely expected to sign the measure into law.
Well, it appears the United States continues to fall behind other civilized nations as our Religious Right continues to drag this country down in its quest to take us back to the Dark Ages.
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario