Chile Congress approves same-sex marriage bill

Celebrations erupted in the Chilean Senate after the passing of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage on December 7, 2021 (AFP/Dedvi MISSENE)

Tue, December 7, 2021

Chile's Congress on Tuesday approved a long-awaited bill to legalize same-sex marriage, joining just a handful of countries in majority Catholic Latin America with similar laws.

The measure, which will also enable married same-sex couples to adopt children, has the support of President Sebastian Pinera, who must sign it into law.

Cheers erupted in the chamber and people waved LGBTQ flags when the bill was approved after a process of some four years.

"I am tremendously moved. I am finding it difficult to keep my composure. It's been a long race," said Isabel Amor of the Fundacion Iguales rights group, who was in the chamber for the vote.

LGBTQ rights group Movilh said the move was "an historic and decisive step" for same-sex couples and parents "who, without exception, were being discriminated against."

The bill got the green light from the upper house of Congress, or the Senate, on Tuesday and was immediately given the final stamp of approval by the lower Chamber of Deputies, with 82 votes to 20.

There were two abstentions.

- 'I do' -

In Latin America, same-sex couples could until now get married only in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, as well as in 14 of Mexico's 32 states.

Chile legalized same-sex civil unions in 2015 and has been awaiting the passage of the marriage bill since then-president Michelle Bachelet sent it to Congress in 2017.

In a surprise move, her conservative successor Pinera announced in June he would seek the urgent passage of the bill -- supported by a majority of Chileans -- through Congress.

The project has been consistently opposed by the most conservative bloc of Chile's ruling right wing, but has nevertheless obtained a majority "yes" vote at every step of the process in an opposition-dominated Congress.

"It is something very significant. One really feels dignified as a human being, as a person," Ramon Lopez, who had been waiting for the law to marry his partner of 21 years, told AFP at the gates of Congress.

"This opens the doors and breaks down all those prejudices," he said.

- Abortion still illegal -

The issue deeply divides the two candidates headed for a presidential run-off on December 19.

Gabriel Boric, 35, who represents a leftist alliance that includes the Communist Party, supported the bill and voted "yes" in his capacity as lawmaker.

But 55-year-old far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast, who won 28 percent of first-round votes compared to Boric's 26 percent, campaigned against it.

Kast, who also opposes elective abortion, has since softened his vocal opposition to same-sex marriage, as he seeks to attract voters from the center.

Last week, Chile's Congress shelved a bill to decriminalize abortion, pending an edit of the text, effectively putting it on ice for at least a year.

The marriage bill was delayed on the same day to iron out differences of legal interpretations of certain technicalities.

The necessary adjustments were made over the past week by an expert committee of senators and lower house deputies.

The law recognizes equal rights and obligations for all married couples regardless of their gender.

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Same-sex marriage now legal in 30 countries



On October 1, 1989, for the first time in the world, gay couples in Denmark tied the knot in legal civil unions, but would have to wait until 2012 to be allowed to marry in church 

(AFP/LISELOTTE SABROE)More

Tue, December 7, 2021, 12:57 PM·3 min read

With Chilean lawmakers approving a same-sex marriage bill Tuesday, we look at the situation across the globe.

While the right to marry has been legalised in 30 countries, homosexuality remains banned in many parts of the world.

Swiss celebrate after voters approved same-sex marriage in a referendum (AFP/Fabrice COFFRINI)

- Europe, gay marriage pioneers -

On October 1, 1989, for the first time in the world, several gay couples in Denmark tied the knot in civil unions, which while giving their relationships a legal standing fell short of full marriage.

It was the Netherlands that first allowed gay marriages, giving more rights in April 2001.

Since then 16 European countries have followed suit in accepting gay marriages: Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and most recently Switzerland.

Other European countries allow only weaker civil partnerships for the LGBTQ community -- including Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia, which rejected gay marriages in a 2015 referendum.

The Czech government has backed draft legislation that would make the country the first post-communist member of the European Union to legalise same-sex marriage, but its fate is uncertain.

In Romania a referendum aimed at enshrining a ban on gay marriage in the constitution failed in 2018 because of a low turnout.

- Progress in the Americas -

Canada was the first American country to authorise same-sex marriage in 2005.

In 2015 the US Supreme Court legalised gay marriage nationwide at a time when it was banned in 14 out of 50 states.

However the United States' first gay marriage actually took place in 1971, when a Minnesota couple obtained a marriage licence thanks to an overlooked legal loophole. The marriage was officially recognised in March 2019, after a five-decade legal battle.

In Latin America six countries allow same-sex marriages: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Costa Rica, which rubber-stamped it last year.

Mexico's federal capital authorised gay marriages in 2009. Half of its 32 states have followed.

Chile legalised gay civil unions in 2015, and its congress on Tuesday passed a bill legalising full-blown same-sex marriage.

Cuba left changes that would have paved the way for legal same-sex marriage out of its new constitution adopted in 2019. In 2021, a draft of a new family code opened the door to same-sex marriage, but it will be put to a referendum.

While much of Asia is tolerant of homosexuality, Taiwan became in May 2019 the first in the region to allow gay marriage (AFP/Sam YEH)

- Taiwan, first in Asia -

While much of Asia is tolerant of homosexuality, in May 2019 Taiwan became the first in the region to allow gay marriage.

In Japan, a court in northern Sapporo ruled in 2021 that the country's failure to recognise same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, in a landmark first verdict on the issue.

Australia (2017) and New Zealand (2013) are the only places in the wider Asia-Pacific region to have passed gay marriage laws.

In the Middle East, where homosexuality is repressed, Israel leads the way in terms of gay rights, recognising same-sex marriages that are sealed elsewhere although not allowing such unions in the country itself.

Several countries in the conservative region still have the death penalty for homosexuality, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

- Africa: marriage in one country -

South Africa is the sole nation on the African continent to allow gay marriage, which it legalised in 2006.

Around 30 African countries ban homosexuality, with Mauritania, Somalia and Sudan having the death penalty for same-sex relations.

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