Cristina Kirchner, Argentina’s President, signed into law the bill that opens marriage to same-sex couples, voted last week by the Senate after a 15-hour debate. The event makes Argentina officially the first country in Latin America to grant this right to gays and lesbians. (more...)
Earlier this year the Portuguese parliament approved gay marriage. Jose Socrates, the Socialist Prime Minister of Portugal, followed through on his campaign promise to push gay marriage through the Parliament, and now the only delay is the President's signature on the bill, which is required to enact the bill into law.
This week, President Silva, of the center-right Social Democrat Party, sent the bill authorizing gay marriage to the Constitutional Tribunal for a review of its constitutional validity-just a formality in the last step in the process barring a President's veto.
Though observers say Silva is skittish about gay marriage (he is a devout Catholic), he is very unlikely to veto the bill because a veto would almost definitely be invalidated by the Socialists, who have a majority in the Parliament. The primary substantive benefit of the delay tactic is fighting to get his paragraph against adoption by gay parents legitimited before he signs the bill. Here again, President Silva is likely to have his language on adoption removed by the Tribunal on the grounds that barring gays from adopting is discriminatory.
Another possible reason that Silva and his party are delaying the passage of the bill into law is that it does not want to ruffle feathers before the Pope visits Portugal in May…
Portugal is in line to be the 6th European country to authorize gay marriage :
Holland (2001), Belgium (2003), Spain (2005), Norway (2008), and Sweden (2009). Though it is not yet clear whether or not the option is still on the table, legal gay marriage does not automatically make adoption by gay couples legal.
Luc Lebelge
In partnership with Gay Kosmopol
