Chile takes the penultimate step towards the approval of equal marriage

The historic bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in Chile took this Tuesday a step further to be approved in the Lower House and now awaits its last vote in the Senate, an announcement that was celebrated by the country’s LGBTI community.

In a session that ended with applause, the deputies approved by a large majority (101 votes in favor, 30 against and 2 abstentions) the legislative initiative that, in addition to calling unions between people of the same sex marriage, allows adoption and marriage. filiation.

SIGHT: Equal marriage continues to advance in Chile and goes to the full Senate

The project, which must return to the Senate, is one of the biggest struggles of LGTBI groups in Chile, where homosexual people can only unite under the figure of the Civil Union Agreement (AUC), which does not recognize filiative rights.

If approved, Chile would become the eighth country in Latin America to legalize it after Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Costa Rica and several states of Mexico.

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“Equal marriage is the protection of the family, an urgent issue that constitutes a light of hope for the country,” said Isabel Amor, director of Fundación Iguales, one of the most active LGTBI platforms in the country.

THE LAST STEPS

Last July, in a surprising twist, the current president, the right-wing Sebastián Piñera, said that “the time had come” to approve the initiative and instructed Parliament to urgently debate it.

The project had been presented in 2017 thanks to the impulse of the former socialist president Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018) and was stalled for almost four years.

In recent months, the rule has been reviewed favorably in both houses and now it is only pending vote in the Upper House, where it will return for the changes requested during its discussion.

“We believe in the dignity of different types of family, the law has to encourage love to develop between all types of couples,” said Christian Democrat deputy Matías Walker.

Meanwhile, the ruling parliamentarian Ximena Ossandón regretted that Piñera had urged the discussion of this initiative, a position she shares with the most conservative sectors of the ruling party.

“A relationship between two men is not the same as a heterosexual one, even if the law says so (…) Nature itself puts its barriers,” he said.

IN PRESIDENTIAL KEY

The rise in the presidential race of the far-right candidate José Antonio Kast, a Catholic who opposes equal marriage and who obtained 27.9% support in the first round last Sunday, was one of the issues that most set fire to the discussion .

“This project is not from the left or right (…) It is important to see it now because Chile is going to decide between democracy or authoritarianism,” said Deputy Félix González, from the Green Ecologist Party.

Kast, who has stated on several occasions that there is a “gay lobby” that “seeks to influence people,” was the most voted candidate and will face the leftist Gabriel Boric in the December 19 ballot.

“Faced with discourses of violence and hatred, it is necessary to respond with love. We do not want ultra-ideological dogmatic biases, ”said Deputy Diego Ibáñez, from the Broad Front, the coalition led by Boric.

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Deshawn