Senate rejects same sex marriage bill

perry

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The Argentine senate has rejected this bill and I am not suprised as Argentinian society is inherently conservative. In todays Clarin only 32.6% are in favour of this bill from14,872 votes cast a sizeable number 37.6% are in favour of a civil union bill and 30 % are in favour of no bill giving gay people and their partners legal status in Argentine society.
http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2009...htm?_url=/diario/2009/12/29/um/m-02110052.htm

By Guillermo Háskel
Herald staff

A Senate committee yesterday rejected a same-sex marriage bill backed by the administration of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — already passed by the Lower House — and favoured instead a civil union bill sponsored by the opposition. Both bills will be debated by the Senate next Wednesday.
The rejection was signed by seven out of 15 members of the Senate’s General Legislation. Supporting the homosexual marriage proposal were six senators, state-run news agency Télam reported. Although there was coincidence that the same-sex marriage was being opposed by a majority of the Senators in the committee, there were conflicting reports as to how many had actually signed the rejection.
The controversy prompted by the same-sex marriage at yesterday’s committee hearing caused a rift in the ruling Victory Front of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband, predecessor and Lower House representative Néstor Kirchner (Victory Front-Buenos Aires province).
María Rachid, the head of Argentina’s Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bi-sexual and Tran-sexual people, told the Herald that the civil union bill was tantamount to fostering apartheid.
“It is the same as when in South Africa they were seeking to force black people to travel in the back of the buses,” she said.
She added that her association supports the homosexual marriage bill as the only "fair" alternative. She added that the civil union bill was just a "second-rank, shameful option" and urged senators supporting it to withdraw it.
Voting to reject the same-sex marriage bill were Senators Liliana Negre de Alonso (dissident Peronist-San Luis, head of the General Legislation Committee), Mario Cimadevilla (Radical-Chubut), Ramón Mestre (Radical-Córdoba), Sonia Escudero (dissident Peronist-Salta), María José Bongiorno (Victory Front-Río Negro, now distanced from the Kirchners), Rolando Bermejo (Victory Front-Mendoza) and Adriana Bortolozzi (Victory Front-Formosa, but voicing dissident). Two senators who had expressed rejection of the same-sex marriage bill failed to attend the committee's debate due to flight complications: José Roldán (Front for All Alliance-Corrientes) and José Cano (Civic and Social Accord-Tucumán).
Supporting the gay marriage bill that was passed in the Lower House were senators Nicolás Fernández (Victory Front-Santa Cruz), Marcelo Fuentes (Victory Front-Neuquén), Pedro Guastavino (Victory Front-Entre Ríos), Elena Corregido (Justicialist Front Alliance-Chaco, a Kirchnerite), Luis Juez (Civic Front Alliance-Córdoba) and Guillermo Jenefes (Victory Front-Jujjuy, in dissidence).
Juez told the Herald that both the majority and the minority resolutions will be debated on the floor on July 14. But there were some reports that the same-sex marriage bill would only be debated if the civil union bill fails to garner a majority support on the floor.
The civil union bill merges five different drafts supported by Bortolozzi, Senator Laura Montero (Radical-Mendoza, a supporter of Vice-President Julio Cobos), Senator Juan Carlos Romero (dissident Peronist-Salta), Senator Luis Naidenoff Petcoff (Radical-Formosa) and Escudero. Cobos is practically in the opposition and has backed the civil union option, which does not allow same-sex couples to celebrate a full wedding. The same-sex marriage bill reforms the Civil Cose to allow same-sex couples to marry.
Escudero said in a written statement that the civil union is "the best option for men and women who do not want to subject themselves to the rigid institution of matrimony, but who want to give a legal framework to their life in common... regardless of their sexual orientation."
She added that her initiative took into consideration a proposal that Argentina's Homosexual Community (CHA) presented in Congress in 2005 and that was shelved after failing to be debated. She also said that CHA never considered the union as "a second-rank option."
Those defending the same-sex marriage bill claim that it is the only way to ensure both an equal legal footing for gay people, and the rights of the children of same-sex couples.
One of the issues that sparked the strongest controversy is whether same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children.
Télam said that those opposing same-sex marriage support a civil union bill that, it added, does not allow same-sex couples to adopt children. However, legislators said that the issue has not been included in any of the bills as it is a matter regulated by a separate law.
Corregido told the Herald that those raising the issue of adoption were actually seeking to prevent same-sex marriage from making progress.
"We are favouring same-sex marriage with exactly the same obligations and rights as those of heterosexual couples, including the right to adopt children," she said.
"There is a lot of hypocrisy from those opposing homosexual marriage. I wonder whether they actually defend so much the abused children of heterosexual couples."
Also, Corregido said, there are already many same-sex couples living with children adopted by one of the partners in the couple. This case poses difficulties when the partner who has adopted the child dies, leaving the child unprotected in many legal aspects.
"The same-sex marriage is the only way to ensure the rights of either the natural child of a same-sex couple and the adopted child of a same-sex couple. The civil union bill proposed by some senators would override article 19 of the Constitution that protects the private life of citizens," Corregido said.
 
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