Argentine Legislators Disregard the Catholic Church and Take a Stand for Human Rights

On July 15th, Argentine legislators made history by passing a measure that allows homosexual couples to marry as well as adopt children, and reverberations can be felt throughout the airwaves a week later. Argentina is the first country in Latin America and the second in the Western hemisphere to legalize gay marriage. The 33 to 27 vote came in the early morning after fourteen hours of debate. Originally, opposition parties had proposed a civil-union bill that excluded adoption as a possibility for gay couples, but as dialogue became more heated, it became clear the Left was unwilling to budge on the issue.

The passage of the bill represents a huge victory for secularists in a predominantly conservative Catholic country. The debate inevitably included religious and moral undertones; for instance, when Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio called for protests, he described the proposed legislation as a “destructive pretension against the plan of God.” This provided rich political fodder for the Left, whose leaders compared the statement to the language of the Inquisition.

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This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Elizabeth Gavin