The historic bill that contemplates legalizing same-sex marriage in Chile took another step forward on Tuesday when it was approved in the Lower House and now awaits its last vote in the Senate., announcement that was celebrated by the LGBTI community of the country.
In a session that ended with applause, the initiative, which also allows adoption and filiation, se approved by a large majority: 101 votes in favor, 30 against and 2 abstentions.
The project, which must return to the Senate, is one of the greatest demands 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 Latin American country to legalize it after Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Costa Rica and several states of Mexico.
“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 the Iguales Foundation, one of the most active LGTBI platforms in the country.
In a surprising twist, last July 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) but it was stalled for almost four years.
In recent months, the rule, which underwent changes in both houses, now needs final approval from the Senate.
“We believe in the dignity of the different types of family, the law has to favor that love can develop between all types of couples,” affirmed the Christian Democratic deputy MatÃas Walker.
The ruling party legislator Ximena Ossandón regretted, however, 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 sets its barriers,” he said.
The impact of the presidential elections
The triumph of the far-right presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, a Catholic who opposes equal marriage and who obtained 27.9 percent of the votes in the first round last Sunday, accelerated the discussion of the postponed project.
“This project is not from the left or the right (…) It is important to see it now because Chile is going to decide between democracy or authoritarianism,” said deputy Félix González, of 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,” warned deputy Diego Ibáñez, from the Broad Front, the coalition led by Boric.
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