ARGENTINA: Thousands demonstrate in support of gay marriage rights

Record ID: 277309

  • Title: ARGENTINA: Thousands demonstrate in support of gay marriage rights
  • Date: 24th June 2010
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF SINGER JULIA ZENKO PERFORMANCE BY AND PEOPLE APPLAUDING
  • Embargoed: 9th July 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAE1SZ0AEMMPMPGR6JTN1WHR6Q1
  • Story Text: Thousands of gay rights supporters celebrated International Gay Pride Day with a demonstration in front of the Argentine congress building on Monday (June 28) to support an initiative to make the Latin American country the first to fully grant same-sex marriage rights to same-sex couples.
    The demonstration brought together the Argentine Homosexual Community or CHA and a number of other gay rights groups as well as student organizations, human rights and workers groups under the slogan "We are families."
    Thousands flooded the downtown Congress Plaza to show their support for the controversial bill which has been targeted by some catholic groups.
    In May, Argentina's lower house passed a gay marriage bill that must now be approved by senators in order to put the South American country among just a handful in the world that allow homosexual couples to wed.
    One of the more controversial provisions in the bill would permit gay couples to adopt children for the first time Argentina.
    The president of the Argentine LGBT Federation, Maria Rachid, says they have the support in the upper house to get the law approved.
    "We already have the commitment of 38 senators that have told us that they will vote in favor of the law. If these commitments are met, with the pressure that senators are getting, on July 14 we will be celebrating that Argentina will be a more just, equal, free and democratic society," said Rachid.
    The bill passed the lower house with support from deputies from President Cristina Fernandez's faction and a diverse range of opposition groups, from the rightists PRO to the leftist Civic Coalition and the centrist Radical Civic Union.
    If passed, Argentina would be the first country in predominantly Roman Catholic Latin America to allow same-sex marriages.
    "We are hoping that it is a yes. Because it will be a very big advance, not only for all of us, gay people, but for all human beings that live in Argentina and for all of Latin America because we would be the first Latin American country to except marriage between people of the same sex," said Argentine fashion designer Jorge Ibanez.
    Five gay Argentine couples have already been married in recent months after local judges authorized the ceremonies.
    Neighboring Uruguay grants extensive rights, including adoptions, to gay couples in civil unions but does not allow them to marry.
    Mexico City is the only other place in Latin America where gays have the same marriage and adoption rights as heterosexual couples.
    The demonstration was capped off with performances by local musicians including Julia Zenko, Fito Paez, Vicentico, Kevin Johansen and Leo Garcia.
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