Two marchers in Taiwan`s 11th annual LGBT Pride March in Taipei City Oct. 26 affirm that ``I am proud to be gay; I`m not a sex refugee!`` Credit: Dennis Engbarth/IP

By Dennis Engbarth
TAIPEI, Oct 30 2013 (IPS)

Taiwan could become the first Asian state to legalise same-sex and other “pluralistic“ forms of marriage if a wide-ranging package of changes to the civil code are approved by the national legislature.

On Oct. 25, Taiwan`s 112-member legislature referred a “marriage equality“ bill of revisions to the Civil Code introduced by 23 lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party to the Judicial Affairs Committee for review and possible first reading.

Taiwan offers one of Asia`s most progressive environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights as both male and female same-sex activity are legal. But same-sex couples are deprived of legal protections encoded in the Civil Code for traditional male-female married households.

Some same-sex couples have filed appeals in administrative courts to overturn the rejection of their applications for marriage registration. But Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR) president Hsu Hsiu-wen told IPS that such legal actions “can only provide remedy for individual couples.

“What we need are lasting changes in the Civil Code to legalise same-sex marriages and civil partnerships in general,“ she said.

The current push follows two previous efforts by DPP lawmakers in 2003 and 2006 to introduce same-sex marriage bills that were blocked from the legislative agenda by the right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) majority.

During an Oct. 25 news conference at the legislature, DPP legislator Yu Mei-nu said the bill reflected both the guarantees of Taiwan`s constitution for equal rights for all citizens and the stipulations of the International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which became part of Taiwan law in December 2009.

Yu noted that 10 international human rights experts who reviewed Taiwan`s first state report on implementation of the covenants in February had described as “discriminatory“ the fact that “only heterosexual marriages are recognised but not same-sex marriages or cohabiting partnerships“ and recommended that “the Civil Code be amended to give legal recognition to the diversity of families in the country.”

The package involves changes to 82 articles of the Civil Code section on marriage and the family, most of which involve changing phrases such as “husband and wife“ to “spouse“ or “father and mother“ to “parents.“

She said the apparently semantic changes were “substantial“ because the wording “adopts a neutral method to express the key conditions of marriage and married spouses and relations between parents and children and affirm the same-sex marriage and marriage rights for persons with diverse sexual preferences.“

The draft bill also includes complementary revisions to articles regarding adoption and inheritance that would equalise rights among spouses and ban courts from basing custody decisions on gender, sexual preference, sexual identity or gender characteristics.

In the future, Yu said that lawmakers would introduce bills on “civil partnerships“ and “family systems,“ a set of draft rules which would aim to democratise family institutions.

DPP legislator Cheng Li-chun said “the government has an obligation to fulfill the constitutional and human rights of all people and not make such fulfilment contingent on public opinion.

“There is no reason why our citizens should be deprived of the right to marry their loved one simply because their loved one has the same sex or because of different sexual preferences,“ said Cheng.

Nevertheless, prospects for early passage are clouded. There appears to be little enthusiasm in the ruling KMT for the proposed “marriage equalisation“ revisions to the Civil Code.

KMT legislative caucus deputy secretary-general Chiang Hui-chen told IPS that “this bill will pass when the time is ripe.“ She added that “the reaction I received when I asked constituents was why are we spending time on an issue like that when there is a crisis on food safety?“

Nevertheless, opposition, especially from religious groups, remains strong. A petition issued by the Taiwan Family Alliance and claiming to have over 310,000 signatures called on citizens to “support the marriage values of `one man, one woman` and `one husband, one wife“` and to “oppose the bills for `same-sex marriage` and `pluralist families’,“ maintaining that the traditional pattern was the “foundation of family ethics and moral values.“

Yu acknowledged in an interview that “there will be a long road before this bill can be approved,“ but said the decision of the full legislature to refer the bill to committee “shows significant progress“ compared to the fate of the previous attempts, which failed to enter the legislative process.

Moreover, TAPCPR`s Hsu said a poll of 567 Taiwan adults conducted by the United Daily News Survey Centre in June showed that support for same-sex marriage had risen from 25 percent in 2003 to 53 percent, while opposition fell from 55 percent to 37 percent and the ranks of “undecided“ shrank from 20 percent to 10 percent.

Hsu said opponents who believed that the reforms would “destroy the family and the institution of marriage“ were mistaken and that the passage of the revisions would “help us prevent many meaningless tragedies.“

“Our goal is to institute a marriage or partnership system in which persons of any gender or sexual preference can register and live together with appropriate legal guarantees and obligations and human rights,“ Hsu said.

“We have found in our discussions all over Taiwan that people can accept diversity through discussion and dialogue,“ she added.

“We hope that the draft revisions can be approved into law, but I also believe that their value lies in our hope that this process can open room for democratic discussion and dialogue in our society about diversity in marriage and gender roles,“ Hsu told IPS.

The draft bill was accepted by Taiwan`s legislature for review the day before the country’s 11th annual colourful LGBT Pride demonstration, which attracted over 50,000 supporters from Taiwan as well as Japan, South Korea and other countries under the themes of “make LGBT visible“ and “struggle together.“

“We want to show support for those who are still suffering or being discriminated against because of their sexual preferences and expressions,“ stated spokesman Albert Yang.

Many people celebrated marriage at the San Francisco Pride Parade. Credit: Judith Scherr/IPS

By Judith Scherr
SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

Sporting wedding gowns, tuxedos, leather, beads, bangles, union t-shirts and Free Bradley Manning buttons – and some wearing just about nothing at all – some 1.5 million people poured into downtown San Francisco Sunday to celebrate lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender pride.

The 43rd San Francisco Pride Parade – the largest of many around the nation and the world – came just four days after the U.S. Supreme Court issued two historic rulings: one overturning a ban on gay marriage in California and the other invalidating part of a 1996 federal law denying spousal benefits to same-sex couples.

Joey Cain was preparing to march with more than 1,000 others in the contingent honouring Bradley Manning, the gay whistleblower on trial in military court for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks.

Dressed in a purple shirt and matching hat, a camouflage skirt that Cain said “reclaimed the colours of the earth back from the military,” and accessorized with a yellow boa and sparkling disco-ball earrings, Cain recounted his earliest experience in the gay rights movement.

“My first gay demonstration was in 1971 in Buffalo, New York, where we stood outside of a gay bar picketing it because it wouldn’t let same-sex people dance together,” he said.

He marveled at how far the movement has come today: “People can actually get federal benefits” for same-sex partners, he said, adding, “It’s amazing; it really is.”

A former Pride Parade Grand Marshal and member of the Pride Parade body that names grand marshals, Cain created a stir when he nominated Bradley Manning for one of the 2013 grand marshal slots.

The other electors agreed, but Pride Board President Lisa Williams reversed the decision calling it a “mistake”.

“Bradley Manning is facing the military justice system of this country,” Williams said in a written statement. “We all await the decision of that system. However, until that time, even the hint of support for actions which placed in harm’s way the lives of our men and women in uniform – and countless others, military and civilian alike – will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride.”

But Cain insisted, “We’re still declaring him a grand marshal. I nominated him because I felt that … he wanted that information released so people knew the truth of what was going on so that they could make informed decisions. He put himself in a dangerous position and I felt that was a heroic act. I wanted the LGBTQ community to know more about him and to come out and support him. And we’ve been wildly successful.”

The Bradley Manning contingent – Number 179 out of some 235 contingents – marched behind a banner proclaiming “Pride in our Whistleblower.” Standing in for the jailed Manning and riding in a pick-up truck marked “Bradley Manning Grand Marshal,” was Daniel Ellsberg, 82, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

“Free Bradley Manning” placards were carried by individuals walking with many of the other contingents as well and those standing in the crowd.

Removing Bradley Manning as grand marshal wasn’t the only criticism of the Pride parade coming from the left.

Deeg, who uses only one name, criticised what she said she sees as the parade’s increasing “corporatisation.”

“Some of these corporations are criminals. They steal people’s homes,” she said of the sponsorship of various banks, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase. Other corporate sponsors included breweries, clothing stores and manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, hotels and media. Many corporations and businesses promoted themselves with elaborate floats in the parade.

Another sore point for some was the military recruiters who had a booth at Civic Center, where festivities continued after the parade.

“I am so angry – first the pride committee dishonours a gay hero by rescinding his election, and then they turn around and invite the military to come here and to recruit young, vulnerable people,” said Code Pink activist Xan Joi. “Exposing them to the danger of the military is outrageous.”

The recruiters’ work, however, was interrupted after the parade by members of the Brass Liberation Orchestra, along with a number of anti-war activists, including war veterans. The group surrounded the recruiters and the band played marching music, making interaction with the public difficult for the recruiters.

Along the parade route, spectators stood five-to-ten persons deep. The event kicked off, as always, with Dykes on Bikes riding dozens of motorcycles, many of them flying rainbow flags.

Loud cheers rose from the crowd when Kris Perry and Sandy Stier of Berkeley, and Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank, rode by in convertibles. It was their challenge that resulted in the court lifting the ban on gay marriage in California. Both couples were married Friday.

Parade participants also included around 150 Mormons, marching behind the Mormons for Marriage Equality banner. “Gay kids grow up Mormon – I’m here to keep them safe,” read one of their signs. The Mormon church poured some 20 million dollars into the fight to support the 2008 ban on gay marriage in California.

There were girl scouts, opponents of circumcision, vegans, Latino parents of gays and lesbians, gay police with colourful balloons tied to their squad cars, a hotline for youth trying to understand their sexuality, a bagpipe brigade, and lots of individuals celebrating their relationships, such as one couple holding the sign: “16 years + 3 children, 1 grandchild – finally married. Proud of My Family.”

Alex Aldana, who said he’s undocumented and queer, marched with Undocuqueer behind the banner: “Don’t stop at Marriage. Queers are getting deported.”

Aldana called the defeat of parts of the federal law “a great victory,” giving binational immigrant couples the ability to sponsor their non-citizen partners for residence. Still, the ruling doesn’t help two undocumented immigrants, Aldana said.

“If I happened to be dating someone who is also undocumented, we wouldn’t be able to sponsor each other because he is not a citizen.”

Aldana said the Supreme Court rulings won’t help undocumented transgender immigrants who continue “to be not only criminalised by the police department because of their transgender identity, but also because of their undocumented status. They get put into detention centres and they suffer discriminatory treatment.”

Aldana said the Supreme Court decisions are a great victory. But he cautioned, “We want all of our immigrant families to be included in that conversation. That’s a human right.”

The Supreme Court ruled today that a key part of federal legislation banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Credit: Bigstock

By Cydney Hargis
WASHINGTON, Jun 27 2013 (IPS)

Large crowds cheered outside the U.S. Supreme Court here on Wednesday morning as the justices inside announced their majority decision that a key part of two-decade-old federal legislation banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

Cheering supporters held signs reading, “The people united will never be defeated.” When the decision was read, they began chanting, “DOMA is dead,” referring to the so-called Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), legislation that for 17 years has disallowed federal recognition of same-sex couples, even as state legislatures have begun to recognise such unions.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down DOMA and simultaneously required the extension of federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. In a separate decision, the court also dismissed Proposition 8, a state law in California, effectively allowing same-sex marriage in that state.

“Today’s decision not only gives federal recognition and respect to the many married same-sex couples in the U.S.,” Graeme Reid, the director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy group, told IPS. “More fundamentally, it also affirms that LGBT people are deserving of fundamental rights and equal protection in all areas of the law.”

The decision will immediately extend benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples, including social security, healthcare, pension and tax benefits, to legally recognised same-sex couples. Currently, around a dozen statess allow same-sex couples to marry."[Today's decision] affirms that LGBT people are deserving of fundamental rights and equal protection."
-- Graeme Reid

“Under DOMA, same-sex couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. “By its great reach, DOMA touches many aspects of married and family life, from the mundane to the profound.”

President Bill Clinton originally signed DOMA into law in 1996, though he has since recanted his support of the legislation. Clinton’s view on the issue mirrors a broader cultural shift throughout the United States, with analysts suggesting that public opinion on same-sex marriage has changed faster than on almost any other issue in memory.

“The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts,” President Barack Obama stated in response to Wednesday’s rulings. “When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.”

Obama himself is a good example of the shift in U.S. popular views on the subject, having announced his support for same-sex marriage only last year.

Still, Wednesday’s court decision was narrowly split, with several of the dissenters suggesting that the court didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the case in the first place, similar to the decision on Proposition 8. Justice Antonin Scalia even read his dissenting opinion from the bench, which is done in a small number of cases, typically when the opinion is very strong.

“In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us.  The truth is more complicated,” Scalia wrote. “It is hard to admit that one’s political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today’s Court can handle.”  

Path towards equality

While the crowd waited Wednesday morning for the second decision, on California’s Proposition 8, a protestor put up a sign that read “Gay Mormon for Marriage Equality”.

“For those of you who don’t know, 10 years ago today a [judicial] decision came down in Lawrence v. Texas, allowing us to be gay,” he said. “And in 15 minutes, we’ll find out if we are considered equals.”

In a 6-3 ruling in 2003, the Supreme Court struck down the sodomy laws in Texas and invalidated these laws in 13 other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every state.

When it was announced, the Proposition 8 decision was also split 5-4, yet essentially the justices decided that they did not have the power to make a full ruling on the case. Proposition 8 banned same-sex marriage in California based on the results of a state-wide referendum in 2008.

In effect, however, the decision is a boon for supporters of same-sex marriage. It allows to stand a 2010 injunction made by a federal district court that sough to prevent the state of California from enforcing Proposition 8, stating that the law violated due process of law and equal protection.

“The Court does not question California’s sovereign right to maintain an initiative process, or the right of initiative proponents to defend their initiatives in California courts,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority on the Proposition 8 case. “But standing in federal court is a question of federal law, not state law.”

Despite the fact that the justices decided not to offer a full ruling on Proposition 8, critics of the law rejoiced.

“This is truly a day for the history books,” Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer who argued the case at the Supreme Court, said following the decision, “one that will be marked by future generations as a giant step forward along our nation’s continuing path towards equality.”

Though noisy opposition was noticeably absent from the rally at the Supreme Court, not everyone was pleased with Wednesday’s decisions.

“Kennedy’s decision is not law,” Maggie Gallagher, a fellow at the American Principle Project, a conservative advocacy group, said in a release. “It is Justice Kennedy’s moral values written into our Constitution, and interfering with our rights as Americans to pass laws that accord with our values on marriage.”

Tim Wildmon, president of the conservative American Family Association, similarly said he was deeply saddened by the decision in a country founded on “biblical principles”. “Our next line of defense is to vigorously protect our religious liberty.”

Meanwhile, others are already looking forward to using Wednesday’s rulings to help new plans to push state-level legislators to bolster support for same-sex marriage legislation.

“Now what needs to happen is [gay] Americans in the other 37 states need to have the same rights that all Americans get: To marry the person they love and have full, equal rights,” Neil Sroka, the communications director for Democracy for America, an advocacy group close to President Obama, told IPS.

“Our supporters and members are ready to hit the ground running.”

Gay activists march on Apr. 25, the anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. Credit: Anette Dujisin/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, May 31 2013 (IPS)

The heated reaction to the legalisation of same-sex marriage has run counter to the widespread image of France as the cradle of the modern republic and equal rights since the 1789 revolution. In contrast, Portugal with its reputation for prudishness, has shown itself to be much more open and tolerant.

The violent backlash of wide sectors of French society against the Apr. 23 parliamentary approval of the bill allowing same-sex marriage, signed into law May 18, perplexed many observers accustomed to regarding this country as a haven of tolerance.
Clashes between police and protesters, many of them members of traditionalist Catholic organisations who view gay unions as an affront to the sanctity of the family, continued late into the night of Sunday May 26.

However, tempers cooled, and on Wednesday May 29 the first French marriage between two men took place without incident in the southern city of Montpellier, with 500 people celebrating, 140 journalists in attendance, and only five far-right protesters who were easily controlled by around 100 police officers.

Prominent figures who oppose gay marriage include Archbishop of Paris Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, and the bishop of Bayonne, Lescar and Oloron, Marc Aillet.

In contrast, in Portugal, also a Catholic country, when the law on same-sex marriage was approved in 2010, the then Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, maintained a respectful silence because of the separation of church and state.

And Portugal went one step further. Following a proposal by the left, supported by several rightwing members of parliament, the Portuguese legislature on May 17 approved a bill allowing “co-adoption” by a same-sex couple of the children (biological or adopted) of one of the partners.

Rui Tavares, Portuguese Member of the European Parliament for the Greens, told IPS the apparent contradiction was because “France is a conservative country, but most foreigners do not believe this because they are only familiar with historic moments like the 1789 revolution, the Liberation (resistance against German occupation 1940-1945) and (the student movement of) May 1968.”

But Tavares said those events “were exceptions to the rule,” and that since 1945, “France has only twice elected leftwing presidents, François Mitterrand (1981-1995) and François Hollande (the incumbent).

“The rest have all been conservatives: Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Jacques Chirac, and Nicolas Sarkozy.” Extreme rightwing leader Jean-Marie “Le Pen even got to the second round of voting in the 2002 presidential elections,” he said.

“What a fine example France is, as the first European republic, but paradoxically retaining many aristocratic and monarchical features, a country with structures that are more authoritarian and hierarchical than those of Portugal,” Tavares said.

“Large pockets of reactionary and retrograde Catholicism remain, that hid under cover during the Liberation, reappeared with the Algerian War and are very well organised,” he said.

In Portugal, in contrast, “there is no extreme right, nor organised Salazarist supporters,” he said, referring to António de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970), the founder and leader of the dictatorship established in 1933 and overthrown in 1974 by the Carnation Revolution, led by leftwing army captains.

“This country has been liberalised, urbanised and modernised a great deal in the last 30 years, and the majority of the population identify with those changes that have improved their lives, and are now much more open and plural,” he said.

In spite of this, “homophobia continues to exist in Portugal, as reflected in language and attitudes, although it is more broad than deep, and many people opt for an attitude of non-interference in other people’s lives, even in aspects that might be regarded as objectionable.

“In general, Portuguese people do not tend to have absolutist views about anything,” Tavares said.

In Portugal, “family ties are strong, and have even become an argument in favour of gay marriage,” he said, describing a personal experience: “My mother, who is 80 years old, telephoned me to say that from now on she is in favour of same-sex marriage, because she heard a gay man say how much his mother would like him to get married.”

In France, “distances are greater, even between close relatives, so opposition to same-sex unions appears to be a rational or values-based issue, and is not undermined so much by experiences of family affection,” the Member of the European Parliament concluded.

For his part, Fernando Fernández, a writer and retired journalist for Agence France-Presse (AFP), said “what is striking about the protests in the country against the law legalising same-sex marriages is that they are an apparent contradiction in a society that has a world reputation for being tolerant, open and liberal.

“It’s true that French society can appear liberal from the perspective of countries that are deeply marked by the Catholic Church, like Spain or Poland,” Fernández told IPS in a telephone interview.

“But in addition to the religious influence, French society is no doubt much more determined by what it regards as its values, and will not accept homosexuals having the same rights and responsibilities” as heterosexuals, he concluded.

Emilia, a 29-year-old Portuguese lesbian, spoke to IPS on condition that her surname be withheld, “because I am one of the lucky few to have a job, in a country where there are many homophobic bosses and unemployment among young people is nearly 50 percent.

“Of course there are fundamental differences between Portugal and France, where a strong police presence is needed at a marriage of a same-sex couple, showing the level of stupidity and primitivism among some French people,” she said.

However, she said the situation in Portugal should not be idealised.

“It’s true that our laws on gay marriage and adoption are among the most advanced in the world, but it’s also true that life is not easy for us, especially when it comes to equal opportunities. We are rejected by people with very conservative morals who hold high office in companies and institutions,” she said.

New Zealand has become the 13th country in the world and the first in the Asia-Pacific region to legalise same-sex marriage.

Lawmakers voted 77 to 44 in favour of the gay-marriage bill on its third and final reading on Wednesday night.

People watching from the public gallery and some lawmakers immediately broke into song after the result was announced, singing the New Zealand love song “Pokarekare Ana” in the indigenous Maori language.

“For us, we can now feel equal to everyone else,” said Tania Penafiel Bermudez, a bank teller who said she already considers herself married to partner Sonja Fry but now can get a certificate to prove it. “This means we can feel safe and fair and right in calling each other wife and wife.”

In one of several speeches that ended in a standing ovation, bill sponsor Louisa Wall told lawmakers the change was “our road toward healing”.

“In our society, the meaning of marriage is universal – it’s a declaration of love and commitment to a special person,” she said. She added that “nothing could make me more proud to be a New Zealander than passing this bill.”

Lawmakers from most political parties were encouraged by their leaders to vote as their conscience dictated rather than along party lines. Although Wall is from the opposition Labour Party, the bill also was supported by John Key, the centre-right prime minister.

“In my view, marriage is a very personal thing between two individuals,” Key said. “And, in the end, this is part of equality in modern-day New Zealand.”

Since 2005, New Zealand has allowed civil unions, which confer many legal rights on gay couples. The new law will allow same sex couples to jointly adopt children for the first time and will also allow their marriages to be recognised in other countries. It will take effect in late August.

“This is really, really huge,” said Jills Angus Burney, a lawyer who drove about 90 minutes to parliament to watch the vote with her partner, Deborah Hambly, who had flown in from farther afield. “It’s really important to me. It’s just unbelievable.”

Burney, a Presbyterian, said she and Hambly want to celebrate with a big, traditional wedding as soon as possible.

Pressure on neighbours

The change in New Zealand could put pressure on some of its neighbours to consider changing their laws. In Australia, there has been little political momentum for a change at a federal level and Prime Minister Julia Gillard has expressed her opposition to same-sex marriage. Some Australian states, however, are considering gay-marriage legislation.

Rodney Croome, the national director for the lobbying group Australian Marriage Equality, said that since Friday, 1,000 people had signed an online survey saying they would travel to New Zealand to wed, though same-sex marriages would not be recognised under current Australian law.

“There’s this really big, pent-up demand for this in Australia,” Croome said. “New Zealand is just a three-hour plane ride away, and many couples are going to go to New Zealand to marry. They are just so sick and tired of waiting for the government to act. I think it’s going to spark this big tourism boom.”

Opposition

Many people in New Zealand remain vehemently opposed to gay marriage. The lobbying group Family First last year presented a petition to parliament signed by 50,000 people who opposed the bill. Another 25,000 people have since added their signatures to that petition.

“Historically and culturally, marriage is about man and a woman, and it shouldn’t be touched,” said Family First founder Bob McCoskrie. “It doesn’t need to be.”

McCoskrie said same-sex marriage should have been put to a public referendum rather than a parliamentary vote. That might not have changed the outcome, however: Surveys indicate that about two-thirds of New Zealanders favour gay marriage.

The change was given impetus last May when U.S. President Barack Obama declared his support for gay marriage. That prompted Prime Minister Key to break his silence on the issue by saying he was “not personally opposed” to the idea. Wall then put forward the bill, which she had previously drafted.

Same-sex marriage is recognised in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina and Denmark.

Lawmakers in Uruguay approved a law last week that President José Mujica is expected to sign. Nine states in the U.S. also recognise such marriages, but the federal government does not.

In his speech before Wednesday’s vote, lawmaker Tau Henare extended a greeting to people of all sexual identities and concluded with a traditional greeting in Maori.

“My message to you all is, ‘Welcome to the mainstream,'” Henare said. “Do well. Kia Ora.”

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Still from TV spot in favour of equal marriage. Credit: Colectivo Ovejas Negras

By Raúl Pierri
MONTEVIDEO, Apr 11 2013 (IPS)

Activists in Uruguay hope the passage of the “Equal Marriage Law” Wednesday will help bring about recognition that society is heterogeneous.

The law approved by the Uruguayan Congress modifies the civil code and recognises the marriage of two people of any gender identity or sexual orientation.

This small country wedged between South America’s two giants, Argentina and Brazil, has thus become the second nation in Latin America, after Argentina, to adopt same-sex marriage.

The law, approved by 71 of the 92 lower house lawmakers present for the vote – out of a total of 99 – represents “the cornerstone of a change in our society’s perspective,” said Michelle Suárez, a lawyer for Ovejas Negras (Black Sheep), an organisation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

“In Uruguay we have a very fundamentalist, homogenising view. We believe there is a kind of hegemonic moral, which we use to categorise practices and conducts,” she told IPS.

But “Uruguayan society is totally heterogeneous and should be recognised as such,” she added. “So no one-size-fits-all utopias should be imposed; instead there should be an archipelago of utopias, all of which merit a space for development and should be connected under the principle of freedom,” said the lawyer, who drafted the original bill.

The law, which was introduced by the governing leftwing Broad Front coalition, also allows gay couples to adopt children or conceive them by means of in vitro fertilisation. The partners only have to sign a legal parenthood contract in which they assume rights and obligations as parents.

The order of the child’s last names – in Spanish, both surnames form part of the full official name, with the father’s surname coming first – will be decided by the partners, or by drawing lots if they fail to reach a decision.

The age requirement for marriage was also raised, from 12 for females and 14 for males, to 16 for both. But parental consent is necessary until the age of 18.

Uruguay had already taken significant steps towards becoming the 12th country in the world and the second in Latin America to approve same-sex marriage.

The Civil Unions Law was passed in 2007, providing legal recognition of stable unmarried couples, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

But registering under the civil union law is a complicated and costly process that requires couples to demonstrate that they have lived together without interruption for at least five years, in an exclusive relationship.

In 2009, a law was approved authorising partners in civil unions to adopt children. And that year, a law was passed allowing transsexuals to change their names on official documents.

But representatives of the LGBT community stressed that there was still much to be done. “One of the goals we have to focus on is an overhaul of the laws and regulations that have to do with discrimination,” Suárez said.

The lawyer insisted on the need to improve regulations for providing assistance to victims who are discriminated against on the grounds of gender or sexual orientation.

Last week, the Senate approved the bill (with slight modifications) in a vote of 23 to 8. Opposition mainly came from lawmakers of the conservative National Party.

The Catholic Church was one of the voices that most vehemently criticised the bill.

As for public opinion with respect to the question of gay marriage, poll results vary, but generally reflect an evenly divided society.

Senator Carlos Baráibar, the only member of the Broad Front who opposed the bill, left his seat to his alternate at the time of the vote in order to avoid going against the party line.

“I don’t agree with calling it ‘equal marriage’, and the bill itself doesn’t even explain why it’s called that,” he told IPS while the vote was taking place.

Baráibar said he was in favour of recognising the legal rights of same-sex couples. But he said they were not in a situation of “igualdad” or equality with respect to heterosexuals. (In Spanish, “igual” means both “equal” and “the same”.)

“Equality means giving equal/same treatment to things that are equal/the same,” the senator said. “For me, marriage still has an essential reproductive purpose, which comes from history, biology, culture and society.”

Baráibar also said adoption by same-sex couples merited a broader, more thorough debate, and cited studies arguing that children who are raised by their biological parents have better prospects for psychosocial development than children raised by homosexual couples.

“In adoption, it is not the welfare of the adults – who can think for themselves – that must be protected; it is the welfare of the children, who sometimes are babies only a few months old without the power of judgment and who, when they grow up, discover that they are surrounded by a world that is made up of mainly heterosexual couples, while they come from a homosexual family,” he told IPS.

Gay marriage is now legal in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Uruguay.

It is also legal in some states in the U.S., the Mexican capital, the southeastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, and some states in Brazil.

In addition, a gay marriage law was approved Wednesday by the French Senate, and similar bills are in debate in Colombia and New Zealand.

French senators have begun examining a controversial bill to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption, prompting protests by opponents keen to see the reform thrown out.

The bill, which would give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples to marry and adopt children, is expected to pass the Senate after being adopted by the lower house of parliament in February.

Both chambers are dominated by the ruling Socialist Party and its allies.

However, the government has been taken aback by the size and vehemence of protests to the bill, which Catholic, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders all opposed.

The bill has come under fierce attack in a country that is officially secular but predominantly Catholic, mobilising hundreds of thousands of pro- and anti-gay marriage protesters nationwide.

“We have the honour of submitting the bill, which was comfortably adopted by the National Assembly (the lower chamber) and aims to open up marriage and adoption to same-sex couples,” said French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira.

Tight vote expected

Debate on the bill is likely to last until Apr. 12 or 13 in the Senate, after which senators will vote to approve or reject it.

The vote is expected to be a tight one as the ruling Socialist party enjoys a smaller majority in the Senate than in the National Assembly.

Broadly speaking, the Socialists support the proposed reform, as do the Greens, Communists and some centrists.

About 280 amendments have been introduced for debate, and the conservative opposition UMP party may put forward a motion asking for the bill to be put to a referendum.

Early on Thursday, opponents registered their protest by turning up at the home of centre-right, pro-bill Senator Chantal Jouanno, blowing whistles and shouting slogans, to try and persuade her to vote against the bill.

Two other anti-gay marriage groups are planning protests later in the day in front of the Senate – one with whistles, drums, tin cans and saucepans, the other involving Catholics praying.

Polarised society

Opinion polls have routinely indicated that a majority of French people support gay marriage.

On Thursday, research by pollsters CSA showed that 53 percent of the French were “favourable” to same-sex marriage, but that 56 percent opposed adoption by a homosexual couple.

The movement against gay marriage has been more vociferous than the one backing same-sex unions.

A campaign orchestrated by the Catholic Church and belatedly backed by the mainstream centre-right opposition has steadily gathered momentum.

In January, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators flooded into Paris for an anti-gay marriage march.

Last month, police were forced to fire tear gas on people protesting the bill, and dozens were arrested.

French President Francois Hollande championed same-sex marriage and adoption during his election campaign last year, and his support for the legislation has not wavered throughout the turmoil.

His girlfriend, Valerie Trierweiler, has revealed that Hollande will be attending the marriages of gay friends once the legislation is on the statute books.

* Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Those against same-sex marriage in the U.S. and those supporting it traded places as the majority opinion over the past decade. Credit: Jason Tester Guerilla Futures/cc by 2.0

By Katelyn Fossett
WASHINGTON, Mar 27 2013 (IPS)

On the second day of oral arguments in two different cases involving the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed serious doubts about the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which codifies the non-recognition of same-sex marriage for federal and inter-state purposes.

For advocacy groups and gay marriage supporters, DOMA effectively sanctions discrimination by denying same-sex couples the same legal and economic benefits allowed to heterosexual couples.

“Marriage equality is a fundamental right, but it also has important implications for other rights – access to housing, custody of children, for example,” Cristina Finch, managing director of the Women’s Human Rights Programme at Amnesty International, told IPS.

Although a separate case heard Tuesday deals with the issue from the angle of a statewide ban – California’s Proposition 8 – both cases have been heralded as potentially landmark decisions.

“I remember supporting [presidential candidate] John Kerry when I was 12, and hearing about the idea of a constitutional amendment to ban marriage – and knowing that was wrong even at that time,” Melissa Wasser, an activist who came to Washington from Ohio to hear the arguments, told IPS outside of the Supreme Court.

“I’m 20 and I feel like we’re finally going through the [legal] steps.”

New figures from a Pew Research Center poll on public opinion toward gay marriage attest to a strikingly rapid shift in public opinion on the issue. Researchers found that those against same-sex marriage and those supporting it traded places as the majority opinion over the past decade.

In 2003, 58 percent of U.S. citizens were against gay marriage. This year, 49 percent supported it, while 44 percent opposed it.

The numbers are even starker if opinion is broken down by age group. According to the same study, 70 percent of those age 18 to 32 support same-sex marriage, compared to just 31 percent of those older than 68 years old.

Possible impact

While the case being heard regarding DOMA, which was passed in 1996, is expected to have a more decisive impact, the California case could be dismissed, as several justices have expressed hesitation to take it on in the first place.

“I just wonder if this case was properly granted,” Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had been expected to be the deciding vote, wondered aloud during Tuesday’s hearings.

Kennedy was likely referring to the charge that the lawyers supporting and challenging California’s law, a state-wide ban on same-sex marriage, are not directly enough injured by it, as they are not from California or affected personally by the ban themselves.

If the justices indeed decide that the case should not have been accepted by the court, a dismissal would uphold the lower court ruling, and California would go back to granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The DOMA case, on the other hand, is more squarely in the realm of federal law. “It seems to me there’s injury here,” Justice Kennedy said Wednesday.

DOMA found its way to the Supreme Court when a woman named Edith Windsor was forced to pay 363,000 dollars in real-estate taxes after the death of her spouse because, under federal law, their marriage was ineligible for tax-relief benefits given to heterosexual couples.

“DOMA does not bar or invalidate any state-law marriage but leaves states free to decide whether they will recognize same-sex marriages,” said a brief filed by the Republican congressional group that is defending the law.

Although the court’s decisions are not slated to become public until June, the activists and supporters gathered outside the court exuded optimism.

“I am pretty confident DOMA will be struck down,” Tom Kelly, a high school student who came from Massachusetts out of an interest in constitutional law, told IPS.

Political u-turn

One element of the DOMA problem that poses potential problems in the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction, however, is the unusual refusal of the government to defend its own law.

In 2011, the Obama administration made a statement that it had found Section 3 of DOMA, which enshrines the non-recognition of same-sex marriage for tax, insurance, and social security benefits, unconstitutional. Despite an appeal from the justice department to overturn the lower court’s ruling, the administration refused to defend it in court, and a Republican Congressional group took up defending it instead.

“This is wholly unprecedented,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts said about the odd circumstances, which some say effectively amounted to a lack of challenge between the two sides.

If the administration’s agreement with the lower court indeed suggests a lack of controversy to a degree that could grant jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, the justices could dismiss the case altogether.

This possibility – that there may not, legally and politically, be enough controversy on the issue for a Supreme Court case – could indeed be most telling about the general direction of gay marriage.

“Not only do the majority of people in the United States support marriage equality, but laws on the state level are changing quickly,” Finch from Amnesty told IPS. “The time is now for this human right to be recognised.”

By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 20 2011 (IPS)

Transvestites and transsexuals in Argentina, who were among the most marginalised minority populations, have seen respect for their rights grow in recent years, especially since same-sex marriage became legal in this country a year and a half ago.

“Equal marriage has done a lot to make us more visible, and doors have started to open,” transvestite Valeria Ramírez, the head of the transgender section in the Buenos Aires AIDS Foundation (FBAS), told IPS.

A book published in 2005, “La gesta del nombre propio” (which roughly translates as “the epic struggle for a name of one’s own”), described the intolerance, humiliation, marginalisation and even attacks suffered by transvestites in this South American country. It also reported that the leading cause of death among this population group is AIDS, and the second cause of death is murder.

The law on same-sex marriage was passed by Congress and went into effect in July 2010, after an intense campaign for equal rights by the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans persons.

The law was the first of its kind in Latin America. Since then, some 2,700 same-sex couples have married, gaining the same rights and obligations as heterosexual couples.

But transvestites and transsexuals are also fighting for a gender identity law that would allow their identity card to match their appearance and carry the name they go by, rather than the one they were given at birth.

The discrepancy between gender presentation and documentation is an enormous hurdle to access by transgender people to formal education, employment, housing or healthcare, unless they hide their transgender identity.

Although around 50 transsexuals in Argentina who have had sex reassignment surgery over the last few decades have obtained documents reflecting their new identities after lengthy legal battles, no law has yet been passed to guarantee that right without the requirement of extensive medical and psychological testing.

This month, the lower house of Congress passed a bill on gender identity, which now goes to the Senate. “For us, having our name on our documents will be a major stride, because otherwise we suffer humiliating experiences,” Ramírez said.

As an example, the activist recalled an embarrassing incident at the dentist’s office. In the waiting room, when she responded after she was called by the name on her identity card, the dentist said he had called Oscar Ramírez, not her.

“When we have to travel, we look like criminals. They look at our identity document or passport, and make us wait. Finally they let us on, but everyone looks at us as if we were terrorists,” she said.

Nevertheless, while they wait for the gender identity bill to be passed, transgender persons are already enjoying a climate of greater acceptance and less marginalisation in Argentina, fomented by the state, and seen in different spheres.

In show business, the country’s most famous transvestite, popular actress and TV personality Florencia de la V, married her long-time partner. And she and her husband hired a surrogate mother in the United States, who gave birth to their twins.

Furthermore, in a historic legal ruling handed down in 2010, she obtained her new identity card, in which she is identified as Florencia Trinidad, rather than her birth name, Roberto Carlos Trinidad.

This month a group of artists held the third edition of the Encuentro de Arte Trans – Festival DesTravArte – a transgender film, theatre, dance, poetry and literature festival.

The aim of this edition was to support the gender identity bill. The organisers pointed out that although sexual minorities have enjoyed greater acceptance since same-sex marriage became legal, many transvestites in the country are still marginalised by society.

And in the programme “Salida de Emergencia”, broadcast by the education ministry’s TV station Encuentro, representatives of sexual minorities from around the country talk about their often traumatic experiences of social integration or rejection.

The University of Buenos Aires, meanwhile, passed a statute this month requiring the university identity documents of transgender students, professors and other staff to reflect the gender and name they use.

The same measure had already been adopted by the National University of Córdoba.

And the cooperatives movement backed by the ministry of social development supported a group of transgender persons who organised and received training and jobs in the textile, food and design industries.

The security ministry, headed by Nilda Garré, issued a resolution this month allowing transgender people working in the federal police to dress in accordance with their gender identity.

The resolution was the end result of a battle waged by a transvestite, Angie Beatriz Álvarez, a federal police officer who fought for over a decade for the right to wear a woman’s uniform.

And under the ministry’s decision, prisoners can now be held in cells in accordance with their gender identity.

Also this month, the Sexual Diversity Memory Archive was unveiled, containing the accounts of some three dozen victims of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship who were brutalised simply because they were lesbians, gays or transgender.

The Archive is in the former Navy Mechanics School (ESMA) – one of the dictatorship’s biggest detention and torture centres, which has now been converted into a “space for memory and the promotion and defence of human rights”.

Ramírez is one of the people whose cases form part of the Archive. She said that in 1976 and 1977, she was picked up on the streets while working as a prostitute dressed in drag, and was taken to Pozo de Banfield, another detention centre, where she was raped and tortured.

“I gave my testimony to the secretariat of human rights, and next year I will be a plaintiff in a lawsuit. I relived everything, and every time I’m in the dark, I see those faces and I can’t forget,” she told IPS.

Ramírez said the state will pay her reparations, as it has done with other victims of the dictatorship and the families of victims. But she said that when she receives the compensation, she wants to do so using her new document, showing the woman’s identity she lives with.

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