Thaindian News

Buenos Aires, July 16 (IANS/EFE) Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalise same-sex marriage following a historic vote in the Senate that laid bare the country’s deep political and social divisions.
The bill backed by President Cristina Fernandez’s government was approved by a vote of 33-27 with three abstentions after a sometimes heated debate lasting nearly 15 hours, even as supporters and opponents of the initiative demonstrated outside the upper house.

Some of the lawmakers, including government supporter Marcelo Fuentes, took the floor to criticise the Church’s attacks on gay marriage.

In what Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio termed a “war of God” over the legislation, the Church unleashed a concerted campaign that included rallies, fiery sermons, sanctions against dissenting priests and advisory meetings with senators prior to the vote.

According to Fuentes, the Church’s attitude had “little to do with the deliberation” and “reconciliatory” posture expected of that institution.

The interminable speeches included arguments encompassing a range of viewpoints, including that of one senator, Sonia Escudero, who opposed the bill on the grounds that “the man-woman relationship is fertile, the homosexual relationship is sterile; since it is different, (different rules should apply)”.

By contrast, Luis Juez, a self-proclaimed “fanatical” devotee of the Virgin Mary, said that “not even in the Bible can one find a paragraph where Christ got angry with gays”.

Another lawmaker - Chiche Duhalde, wife of former President Eduardo Duhalde - appealed to her colleagues on a personal level, saying that she has “gay friends, gay relatives and I don’t have any problem” with the bill.

During the lengthy debate, some senators lectured on the sexual life of plants and penguins, provided lists of illustrious gays and lesbians, alluded to Argentine and world history and the constitutional guarantee of equality and recounted their personal experiences with matrimony.

One lawmaker referred to members of the gay community as if they were from another planet, saying “they are just like us; they live like we do, feel like we do”.

But one senator, Eugenio Artaza, managed to encapsulate the issue in a single phrase: “Why such a big effort to prevent other people from having the same rights we have?”

Meanwhile, despite the frigid temperatures of the South American winter, hundreds of people held vigil for hours outside Congress while awaiting the final vote.

Holding up large banners with slogans such as “Only a Man and a Woman” and “I Want a Mom and a Dad”, opponents of gay marriage clutched rosaries and prayed for the bill’s defeat.

Opposite them, human and gay rights groups were joined by members of the governing Peronist party in celebrating the Senate’s approval of the bill.

Passage of the measure, which becomes law after being published in the Official Gazette, erases doubts over an issue that has sparked heated controversy for months in Argentina.

Same-sex civil unions had already been legalised in four Argentine cities, although those arrangements are not equivalent to gay marriage, which typically implies the right to adopt children and inherit wealth from one’s spouse.

Seeking full rights, eight gay and lesbian couples had secured court rulings allowing them to unite in matrimony, although some of those civil marriages were subsequently nullified.

Buenos Aires’ Civil Union law, which was approved in late 2002, was the country’s first legislation on the matter and the first recognition of gay couples in Latin America.

Mexico City’s legislature legalised same-sex marriage last December, but Argentina is the only Latin American country where gay marriage is now permitted nationwide.

–IANS/EFE

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