- Title: BOLIVIA: Bolivia's gay community demands equal rights and marriage
- Date: 1st July 2011
- Summary: LA PAZ, BOLIVIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) A GAY COUPLE MARCHING THROUGH THE CITY CLOSE-UP OF THE COUPLES HANDS CLOSE-UP OF TWO MEN KISSING GENERAL VIEW OF A GAY COUPLE
- Embargoed: 16th July 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Bolivia, Plurinational State Of
- Country: Bolivia
- Topics: People,Lifestyle,Social Services / Welfare
- Reuters ID: LVABJX25KSIC9L9WJ2J8Z05GKGU2
- Story Text: More than a thousand lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans persons took part in a pride parade through downtown La Paz in demands of equal rights including marriage rights in a country where the LGBT community remains mostly undercover.
June is International Gay Pride Month and thousands of marches are held every year around the globe to mark the event.
This is just the tenth year a gay pride parade has been held in Bolivia and the movement continues to grow year after year, so much so that this year activists were also celebrating the presentation of the first petition to allow civil unions between same-sex couples in the Andean nation.
Despite the growing movement, most LGBT people remain in the shadows of a country that largely remains uneasy with the idea.
"No, I don't think so. We are still not ready for this because this country is recently evolving culturally and all these details and I don't think it is ready for this," said La Paz resident Jose Siles Molina.
In 2010, seven homosexuals were killed because of their sexual orientation, highlighting the struggles activists and the community as a whole face here.
Known as the first gay couple openly shown to the public in Bolivia, Roger Arispe, 33, and Juan Carlos Miranda, 36, have been together for ten years and live together in this La Paz home.
Both men are activists in the gay community and told Reuters they are working for full acceptance in society and under the law for all LGBT people, including marriage rights.
"I think union between people is a right, for it to be there for those who want it. It's like something is missing, a public policy that allows a state-recognized legal relationship with your partner. Its like you're invisible, you don't really exist. It's like with heterosexual people, those who want to get married, get married and those who don't, don't, but they have the law that covers and protects them, while in our case, we don't," Arispe said.
The two say given the chance they would marry in order to secure inheritance rights, start a family and be able to build a future together like any married couple.
The president of an umbrella coalition of gay, lesbian and trans groups, Alberto Moscoso, authored a petition to allow same-sex civil unions in Bolivia.
He says the country's 2007 constitution and the fact that the country, now officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia with aims to respect its diversity, contradict the systematic denial of gay marriage rights.
"We have seen a legal contradiction exists in the state political constitution because in article 14 in the second paragraph, it says the country, but in reality the state, guarantees every law to the population as a whole. But in article 63 of the state political constitution there is a padlock because it speaks directly to marriage saying it should be between a man and a woman. So, first of all we can see there is a legal vacuum and secondly a legal contradiction in the same document," Moscoso said.
Moscoso's proposal would change the constitution and the community's calls have fallen softly on the ears of some members of the national assembly.
Lawmaker Osvaldo Quillermo Torrez of the government's Movement for Socialism Party (MAS) which drafted the disputed constitution, says the LGBT community deserves the support of their country.
"They are born with, what we say, gay blood. We generally say "fag" but we can't cast these people aside. In the end they are people with 100 percent feminine hormones. So because of that I want to encourage all citizens that we cannot be against what is born. They were born this way so we have to support nothing more than the decision each person makes," Quillermo Torrez said.
The hopeful, activists say the still face a long battle to full recognition under the law and possibly longer to being openly accepted in society.
Generally the only place LGBT people are open about their sexuality is at the annual pride march and surprisingly, the religious People's Celebration of the Great Power of the Lord, where scores of gay men, lesbians and transgender people can be seen dancing, holding hands, and kissing in the streets.
But not all LGBT people see marriage rights as a must. In fact, the leader of the prominent Women Creating group, Maria Galindo, a lesbian, says marriage is a step backwards when gay leaders should be looking forward.
"Personally I really don't think… it isn't a right, it isn't an assertion. The right was the right to divorce, and women accomplished that. Marriage was a contract of submission. So it is a very serious degree of depoliticization that the LGBT movement has on a world scale, to join a model of bourgeoisie families and make it their own. Marriage is a domestication process. In general, I think anyone who wants to; Jews, Christians, hippies can celebrate whatever they want. It is a problem of individual respect, but there is a political debate to be had," Galindo said.
For others the simple fact that there is now room for debate in the South American country is sign of progress and gives them hope to drive forward. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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