Uruguay Approves Gay Marriage

Joe.My.God. reports:

Moments ago the Uruguay Senate approved its marriage equality bill by a vote of 23-8. The bill now returns to the nation’s lower legislative chamber to reconcile a minor change.  President Jose Mujica has promised to sign the bill and marriages should commence within a few months. ¡Felicidades Uruguay!

UPDATE: Freedom To Marry cheers via press release. 

• “Freedom to Marry applauds the people of Uruguay and their government for moving forward into a future in which all loving and committed couples can share in the freedom to marry and the meaning and protections marriage brings to families. Uruguay’s vote today to move past civil union to marriage itself, Argentina’s enactment of the freedom to marry in 2010 and the Mexico Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling last month in favor of the freedom to marry — citing the U.S Supreme Court cases of Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia — all are inspirations and examples decision-makers here in the United States, including our Supreme Court justices, should swiftly follow to get the U.S. where it needs to be.”

ECUADOR: President Rafael Correa Apologizes On National TV For Homophobic Remarks

 Joe.My.God. reports:

Hours after Ecuador President Rafael Correa won a third term on Sunday, he used a portion of his nationally televised victory speech to apologize for anti-gay remarks he’d made several months earlier. Andres Duque has a translation on Blabbeando: 

• A few months ago I used a number of inappropriate words that were offensive to LGBT groups and for which I apologized in writing - and I stated I would apologize again after winning [the election] to make sure they knew I wasn’t doing it simply for political gain. 
• Once again I’d like to express my apologies to those LGBT groups for some words that might have escaped me. Each one of us was born and grew up with stereotypes and stigmas and we have to fight against this type of - let’s call it deformed - social upbringing, etcetera. But our commitment is to defend everyone’s dignity and equality. We are diverse but never unequal.
• And I was reminded of this by the leader of a GLBT group who I greatly admire a couple of days ago. You need a lot of courage to lead these type of movements. Let’s offer them all our support and - on a personal basis - I offer my full respect and the effort and commitment to eliminate all types of discrimination in this country.

RELATED: Ecuador legalized civil unions in 2009 and allows gays to served openly in the military. In 1998 it became the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to alter its federal constitution to ban most forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation. (Canada followed shortly after.) However same-sex marriage and gay adoption are both banned by Ecuador’s constitution. 

Mexico Reportedly Lifts Gay Blood Ban

Blabbeando reports:

A little noticed Mexican health norm first approved in August and then published in the country’s regulatory Official Federation Diary on October 26th has gone into effect today essentially doing away with a two-decade ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, reports Animal Político.

The old norm (NOM 003-SSA2) explicitly banned gay and bisexual men from donating blood based on their “practices” and their “increased probability of acquiring HIV or hepatitis infection”.

The new norm (NOM 253) eliminates specific bans on gay and bisexual men and instead bans blood donations from people with HIV or hepatitis and their partners and people who engage in “risky sexual practices” regardless of their sexual identity.

In the new blood donor norms “risky sexual practices” are defined as those that may include “contact or exchange of blood, sexual secretions or other bodily secretions between someone who might have a transmittable disease and areas of another person’s body through which an infectious agent might be able to penetrate.”

The United States and a number of Latin American countries which includeArgentina, Chile and Colombia have been mulling lifting similar longstanding bans that have been in effect since the HIV/AIDS crisis broke through decades ago.

If this report is correct, Mexico might be the first country in the American continent to lift such a ban. 

With this, and the recent ruling by the Supreme Court striking down the ban on gay marriage nationwide, Mexico is now leading the path on equality in Latin America and beyond.

BRAZIL: Sao Paulo State Legalizes Gay Marriage

Brazilian Law Blog

Brazil is about to see something that we only heard about from the United States: a massive movement of people going to one specific State, in order to get married there.

This is because São Paulo State (where São Paulo city is located) has updated its registration rules in order to allow the automatic registration of same sex marriages, without the need of a previous court order.

This change has followed, with some delay, a decision from the Brazilian Supreme Court regarding same sex marriage.

Therefore, foreigners who wish to marry same sex partners in Brazil will now be allowed a marriage visa, which is much easier to obtain than the civil union visa for same sex unions, which already existed.

I consider this a triumph  of law and civility. A good thing for Brazil, at last.

The link below is in Portuguese:

Folha de S.Paulo - Cotidiano - Norma do TJ obriga cartórios de SP a registrar casamento gay - 19/12/2012

Uruguay: House Overwhelmingly Approves Same-Sex Marriage By 81-6 Vote

Joe.My.God. reports:

Rex Wockner and Andres Duque have the good news: 

Eighty-one of the 99 members of Uruguay’s House of Representatives voted to legalize same-sex marriage this evening. Twelve members of the chamber were not present for the vote.The bill now advances to the Senate, where support is equally strong, according to LGBT activists. President José Mujica plans to sign the measure into law in early 2013. “Very happy here!” said Álvaro Queiruga of the LGBT lobby group Colectivo Ovejas Negras (Black Sheep Collective). Uruguay will be the 12th nation to offer same-sex marriage nationwide. Same-sex marriage is legal in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Mexico (where same-sex marriage is legal in the Federal District, i.e. Mexico City, and in the state of Oaxaca, and those marriages are recognized nationwide).

Yet another victory in our best year ever. So far!

Mexico: Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban On Gay Marriage

After Marriage reports:

The Supreme Court of Mexico issued a unanimous ruling Wednesday afternoon that paves the way to universal marriage rights in the country.
The actual ruling won’t be published for a little while, but the gay rights advocates who brought the case are proclaiming that today’s ruling “opens the door to equal marriage in the whole country.”
The court ruled on behalf of three same-sex couple seeking to marry in the southern state of Oaxaca. The court had already ruled in 2010 that gay marriages performed under a Mexico City ordinance had to be recognized nationwide. With this precedent, the remaining bans on gay marriage in most Mexican states could quickly fall.
This ruling does not immediately eliminate marriage statutes limiting unions to a man and a woman—the Mexican Supreme Court doesn’t have the power to strike down state laws like that en mass as the United States Supreme Court does. But the lawyer who brought the case, Alex Alí Méndez Díaz, said before the ruling that victory would mean the beginning of the end for bans on same-sex marriage.
(More about Méndez here—he started the case as a law student.)
The court’s ruling that the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutionally discriminatory is partly based on a February ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that governments can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, Karen Atala Riffo y Niñas v. Chile.
This case could have repercussions outside of Mexico—by expanding this precedent to include the right to marry, courts in other Latin American countries that recognize the Inter-American Accord on Human Rights could follow this precedent and determine that marriage rights are also protected in their countries. And the Inter-American Court itself could be more likely to recognize a right to marry—a case brought by three couples trying to strike down Chile’s ban on gay marriage has already begun making its way through the international judicial system.

Brazil: One Million Attend Rio Gay Pride 2012

Uruguay: Congress Considers Marriage Equality Bill

ABC News reports:

Uruguay’s congress is considering a gay marriage law that would give same-sex couples all the same rights and responsibilities of heterosexual married couples.
The country already has a civil unions law and has stood out in Latin America lately for legalizing abortion and planning to sell government-grown marijuana to any citizen who wants it.
The proposed “marriage equality” law would change Uruguay’s nearly-century-old civil code and give married gays and lesbians all the rights and responsibilities of heterosexual married couples, including the possibility of adopting children.
It was drafted by gay rights activists in the so-called “Black Sheep Collective” and now has the support of lawmakers in the ruling Broad Front coalition, which decided Wednesday to debate the measure next week in the House of Deputies’ constitutional commission.
“Today’s society is much broader than the heterosexual, and the civil code should reflect this: a marriage institution that applies equally to all,” Federico Grana, a member of the collective, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “This goes well beyond homosexuality — it’s a law that gives all the same rights and responsibilities.”
Uruguay’s Roman Catholic Church is opposed.
Bishop Jaime Fuentes, who presides over family issues for the church’s governing episcopal conference, told the AP Wednesday that “marriage equality” is a discriminatory misnomer.
“It seems logical that two people of the same sex who care for each other and want to share their lives together can have some sort of civil acknowledgement, but it can’t be the same as what governs marriage,” Fuentes said. “Giving this kind of union the same obligations and rights as marriage would represent serious discrimination against a married man and woman.”
The bishop argued that “children have a right to be raised by a father and mother, by birth or adoption.”

Mexico: Muxes, A Third Gender Embraced By The Zapotec People In Oaxaca

Brazil: Gay Father Granted Full Maternity Leave

Pink News UK reports:

A government agency in Brazil has granted the full allotment of “maternity” leave to a gay man in a civil partnership, who has adopted a child.
Lucimar da Silva requested the full four month parental leave two years ago, when he and his partner adopted their child.
Up until now, Brazillian law has required that the mother of a child would be granted four months leave, whilst the father would get five days.
An employee of Brazil’s social security agency, da Silva, argued that it would be discrimination should he not be offered the same as a female employee taking the same type of leave.
Yesterday, the agency made a statement saying that this case did not set a legal precedent, and that in future, couples faced with a similar situation should still apply for the leave individually.
In July, ambassadors for Brazil demanded more action and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity as part as universal human rights standards.

Chile: President Sebastian Pinera Signs Hate Crime Legislation Into Law

Pink News UK reports:

Chile’s president Sebastian Pinera signed anti-discrimination legislation into law today. The move comes after the Neo-Nazi killing of a gay man, Daniel Zamudio, in March.
Mr Zamudio’s killing shocked Chile and sparked a national debate on hate crime. He suffered severe head injuries and his body was found in a city park with cigarette burns and swastikas carved in his skin.
The hate crime bill had languished in Congress for over seven years, but was finally fast-tracked to approval after the attack. It cleared its final hurdle with a 25-3 vote in the Senate.
Mr Zamudio died three weeks after the attack.
Chilean police arrested four men aged between 19 and 25 shortly afterwards.
Patricio Iván Ahumada Garay, Fabián Alexis Mora Mora, Alejandro Axel Angulo Tapia and Raúl Alfonso López now face charges of second-degree homicide.

La ley antidiscriminación es hoy una realidad. Trabajemos todos por un país que respete la diversidad: chilecumple.cl/chile-hoy/pres…

— Sebastian Piñera (@sebastianpinera) July 12, 2012

Argentina: President Cristina Kirchner Delivers New ID Cards To Transgender Individuals, Celebrates Decree Improving Adoption Rights 

Via Blabbeando:

“Today is a day of tremendous reparation. Today we do not shout for liberation but instead we shout for equality, which is just as important as freedom. I do not want to use a word that bothers me greatly: Tolerance. No. I do not believe in ‘tolerance’. To tolerate is to say I’ll allow you to be because I have no other choice. I want to talk about equality and I want to talk about all of you who will now have the same rights I have enjoyed from the moment I was born and the rights that so many millions of Argentinians have enjoyed from the moment they were born. This is the society we want.” says President Kirchner at an event marking the new right of transgender citizens to officially change their gender on official documents without proving they’d undergone surgery.

Blabbeando’s Andrés Duque notes the following details of the event, for those who don’t speak Spanish:

If you see lots of children in the room it’s because the Argentinean president also signed a presidential decree yesterday which put an end to a legal loophole that kept same-sex parents who began raising children before the 2010 marriage equality law passed from registering as co-parents of those children.  If I understand correctly, the decree gives same-sex parents that weren’t covered by the marriage equality law a full year to legally register their children as their own.
During her speech and before an image of Eva Perón, the president seemed to tear up a couple of times as she repeatedly invoked her husband Nestor Kirchner’s name as having been key in securing passage of the marriage equality law.  Her husband, a former Argentinean president himself, died in October of 2010.
“Today is a day of tremendous reparation,” the president said at the start of her speech, “today we do not shout for liberation but instead we shout for equality, which is just as important as freedom.”
Referring to Kalym Adrian, who was sitting in the front row holding the flag of the Argentinean LGBT Federation (FALGBT), the president then stated that Mr. Adrian had known he was a man as early as when he was four years of age and said that it was only now at 42 years of age that he was finally being recognized for who he was. “He has waited all his life!” someone shouted from the audience which the president acknowledged by repeating “All his life”.
Noting that the average age at which transgender individuals die in Argentina is 32, the president argued that part of it was due to the stress of being repressed and ignored and being denied legal rights. She said she hoped this law would change all that.

She later added “There is nothing new under the sun and let’s see if we all can agree on that.  All these issues we are acknowledging today in a legal way are nothing new. They stem from the history of humanity and it’s time for us to accept that reality is not how we’d like to be if I think in a certain way or someone else wants it to be but that reality is what it is.”
The President then alluded to the days of the dictatorship when children were taken away from families and the Mothers of the Plaza began their silent protests to get their children back and championed a history of peaceful protests in Argentina in demand of human rights.  She compared it to the history of non-violent demonstrations by the Argentinian LGBT community and began thanking the LGBT activists and organizations present in the room until Alex Freyreshouted out “And those who are missing as well!”
Alex and José Maria Di Bello, who became the first same-sex couple to marry in all of Latin America when a court in Tierra del Fuego granted them a license in December of 2009, were sitting in the audience wearing their trademark red-ribbon sashes in memory of all those lost to HIV and AIDS.
The president took note and recognized that the fight for human rights sometimes left people feeling worn out but said that she was grateful for the altruistic efforts by some to not only fight for their rights but also the rights of others.
“It’s better to have lived a worn out life than to always live like a flower or a butterfly without having achieved a thing,” she said.
She finally closed by apologizing to people like Mr. Adrian for having had to wait for almost forty years to finally be recognized.

In the room, along with Alex and José, Kalym and members of the FALGBT were also Marcela Romero, Coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Trans People (RED LACTRANS), Alejandro Iglesias, who revolutionized how people in Argentine felt about transgender individuals through his participation in the hugely popular Argentinean edition of “Big Brother”, members of the Argentinean Association of Travesti, Transsexual and Transgender Individuals (ATTTA), Husbands César Cigliutti and Marcelo Suntheim who lead Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (CHA) who laid some of the groundwork for the gender identity law in the during the last decade, Diana Sacayan who leads the Anti-discrimination Movement for Liberation (MAL) and who was a recipient of one of the ID’s handed out by the president, Maria Rachid, Esteban Paulón, María José Lubertino and so many other individuals who have played such integral parts in getting these laws passed.

So, Argentina is now the most progressive country in the world on LGBT Rights overall. Not only legalized same-sex marriage in 2010, but now they’ve passed a law that allows transgender people to change their legal documents without to having to prove they’ve undergone sex-change surgery, but also signed a law that gives more rights to same-sex couples regarding fully adopting children as co-parents, for those who are not the biological parents.

Viva Argentina! 

Brazil: Young Brothers Victims Of Hate Crime, Mistaken For Gay Couple

Boy4Me reports:

The attackers were turned over to the authorities. The gay community in Brazil rejected the violence.

A young man walked embraced his brother early Sunday in a city of Bahia died after being beaten by a group of eight men who allegedly beat two young men considering them a gay couple, police said Thursday.

Jose Leonardo da Silva, 22 years, died of his blows and his brother stayed with fractures in his face, according to local media reported.

“We started the investigations. Five young men still detained at the police station and all were questioned but have no justification for aggression. Working with the suspicion of homophobia,” he told reporters in charge of the police unit, Maria Tereza Santos Silva.

“The perpetrators and the victims did not know and had no previous fight,” he added.

The legal profession in Brazil on Thursday asked the government to take part in the investigation of crime.

“Even if they had been homosexuals, [that’s no reason for them to be victims of] any aggression, much less of a homophobic murder and brutal [attacks],” said Jaime Asfora, president of the Human Rights Commission of the Order of Lawyers of Brazil, the highest body representing the lawyers.

According to the Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB), which has been collecting statistics on violence against the gay community for three decades, as stated on its website, 266 members of the gay community were killed in 2011 in Brazil.

Mexico: PRI Candidate Enrique Peña Nieto Declared New President 

Hispanically Speaking News:

Enrique Peña Nieto claimed victory in Mexico’s presidential election and vowed to work for reconciliation and national unity while crafting a “modern and responsible” presidency.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, candidate said he would continue to fight organized crime, but with a new strategy that focuses on reducing violence and safeguarding the lives of Mexicans.
“Let it be clear. There will be no pact or truce with organized crime,” the 45-year-old Peña Nieto said, referring to the wave of drug-related violence that has claimed the lives of more than 50,000 people since late 2006.
Peña Nieto, according to the preliminary vote tally released by the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, won 37.33 percent of the vote in Sunday’s general elections, with 78.47 percent of the ballots counted.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, candidate of the leftist Progressive Movement coalition, won 32.55 percent of the vote, while governing National Action Party, or PAN, candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota got 25.37 percent of the vote.
Longshot Gabriel Quadri, of the New Alliance Party, or PANAL, won 2.37 percent of the vote.
Figures from the Preliminary Election Results Program, or PREP, will continue to be released over the course of the day, the IFE said.
Peña Nieto thanked the millions of Mexicans who placed their trust in him and promised to take the presidency in a new direction.
Mexico will have “a modern presidency, responsible, open to criticism, and willing to listen and take everyone into account,” Peña Nieto said.
Sunday’s election gives the PRI, which governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000, a second chance, Peña Nieto said.
“The country wants work, cooperation and, above all and most importantly, results,” Peña Nieto said.
Mexico will be getting an administration that is “efficient, honest, transparent and accountable,” Peña Nieto said.
The politician and former Mexico state governor was accompanied by his wife, actress Angelica Rivera, on the stage.
“I invite everyone to leave behind our differences and tensions from the electoral contest,” Peña Nieto said.
President Felipe Calderon, of the PAN, congratulated Peña Nieto on his victory and expressed his “absolute willingness” to help bring about an orderly transition.
Calderon will leave office on Dec. 1.

PRI, a Center-Right political party, returns to power after two presidential tearms of 6 years each under rightwing rule (PAN). PRI remained in power for little over 70 years in Mexico at a federal level until PAN’s candidate, Vicente Fox, won the elections back in 2000, becoming the first President in Mexico’s history to be from another political party outside PRI (Vicente Fox, however, for this elections, publicly supported PRI’s candidate). During PRI’s rule, Mexico lived under repression with no freedom of speech. Acts of genocide are among the many issues that PRI hasn’t taken responsability for.

The appartent new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has promised to lead the country in a more inclusive way. However, it is very unlikely that he will include a pro-LGBT  agenda during his term. He’s said, thou, that he stands on the belief that Marriage is a union between a man and a woman, but that he won’t meddle in the States affairs regarding LGBT Issues. 

Josefina Vázquez Mota, the first woman to ever be endorsed by a major political party (PAN), lost by a landslide, comparing next to the other two presidential candidates, having around the 25% of the votes, Enrique Peña Nieto 38%, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (PRD, left) 32% of the preliminary results. 

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from the Leftist Party PRD (Democratic Revolucionary Party), has vowed to accept the final results of the elections, to be released this week, a very different reaction to the one he had six years ago when running against current President, Felipe Calderón. Back then, he claimed victory ahead of the final results, and then called out IFE (the Federal Electoral Institute) on being guilty of fraud. 

Yes, Peña Nieto is cute but he’s Sarah Palin dumb.

More to come…

Chile: 12th Annual Pride Parade Attracts 80, 000 & British Embassador Jon Benjamin

Pink News UK reports:

On Saturday, Santiago’s twelfth annual pride parade took place with over 80,000 people demanding further advancement of LGBT rights in Chile.
Marcha por la Igualidad, or March for Equality, took place on a sunny winter day in Santiago, with attendees demanding equality before the law.
The march was also attended by prominent politicians as well as by the British ambassador Jon Benjamin, who read a letter of support for pride and LGBT rights on behalf of the European Union.
‘When the family supports, society does not discriminate’ was the motto of this year’s march, organized by Movilh, Chile’s main LGBT rights organisation.
It started at 2pm from Plaza Italia, at the heart of Santiago with a wide range of organisations and movements represented as well as party-goers and their friends and families. Besides carrying political banners, the march was festive in nature and boasted a huge closet that people could walk into and ‘come out’ of.
On a more serious note the march commemorated the death of Daniel Zamudio, a young man who was murdered by neo-Nazis due to his sexuality, and his mother spoke movingly in his memory during the event.
The march celebrated the resulting passage of Chile’s first anti-discrimination law, which will include harsh legal penalties for hate crimes once the country’s President Sebastián Piñera signs it into law in a few weeks time.
The march continued through downtown Santiago ending by the La Moneda presidential palace, where two stages, organised by the two leading LGBT rights organisations of Chile, hosted celebrities, artists and speakers entertaining the crowd until 9pm.
Many politicians participated and spoke to the participants, including Education Minister Harald Beyer, Socialist Senator Isabel Allende, and ex-Finance Minister Andres Velasco, who is also a presidential candidate for the 2014 elections.
‘We have made some steps, but we need much more’ Velasco said. ‘It is incredible that we took seven years in Congress to have an anti-discrimination law, which was approved only when we saw a young Chilean man tortured to death only three blocks from here.’
The march also campaigned for a civil partnership law, known as Acuerdo de Vida de Pareja (AVP), that would formally recognize same-sex couples and grant them the same rights as heterosexual ones.
‘I have always supported gay marriage’ said Harald Beyer, Chile’s Education Minister. ‘Societies need to gradually move forward, and this government has taken the AVP as a first step to keep moving forward to have a more equal society.’
UK ambassador Benjamin told me: ‘It’s the second year running I participated in the march.
‘I was there to show the British government’s support of LGBT rights worldwide, and personally I am also very supportive of gay rights movements.
‘During the march I read out a letter of support of LGBT rights in Chile signed by the 19 European Union Ambassadors which have an embassy in Santiago.
‘As far as I am aware I was the only ambassador present; a US embassy representative also attended. The fact that many politicians from across the political spectrum were present, including the Minister for Education, shows wide range support for LGBT rights.
‘Much change has been taking place in this rather conservative country since the return to democratic rule. LGBT rights have increasingly received wider support both politically and socially. The current government right of centre government, led by president Piñera is quite liberal on the issue of LGBT rights, as evidenced by the landmark anti-discrimination law and the plans to introduce civil partnership.
‘It is also worth noting that Chile voted for a UN resolution on human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity on the 17 June 2011.
‘On 17 May we flew the rainbow flag alongside the Union Jack to commemorate the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO).’