After more than 12 hours debate in the senate, the law was eventually approved with 33 votes in favour, 27 votes against. On Wednesday the 21st, president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed the law, amidst hundreds of supporters and equality campaigners who had gathered in the Casa Rosada to see the result of years of hard work formally approved as law. ‘Now we are a society a little more equal than a week ago,’ affirmed the president.
The new law stipulates that marriage can now occur between ‘contrayentes’ - ‘contracting parties,’ regardless of their sex. Thus the marriage law in Argentina is now equal in every detail for both homosexual and heterosexual couples, and fulfils the demands of what became the slogan of the equality campaigners: El Mismo Amor, Los Mismos Derechos, con El Mismo Nombre (The Same Love, The Same Rights, with The Same Name). The new law has already come into effect, with the first marriage occurring on the 30th of July in Santiagueña de Frías between José Luis David Navarro and Miguel Angel Calefato. ‘We have been together for 27 years, so for us this is a formality, but the approval of the law is a great achievement,’ said Navarro.
The approval of the law came as a surprise for many. In a debate in the senate a week prior to the final vote, a majority of senators came out against the bill. Two days before the vote, religious groups organized a massive march on congress, which it is estimated that 60,000 people attended. In contrast, a counter-demonstration was held at the Obelisk at which only a few hundred people were present. Religious groups – primarily the Roman Catholic Church – conducted a large, highly organised campaign against the bill, and it appeared as though it was going to be successful.
For that reason, it would be naive to assume that the battle is over. Since the passing of the law, several state officials in various parts of the country have said that they will refuse to marry gay couples on grounds of ‘conscience.’ Marta Covella, the Justice of the Peace for General Pico, La Pampa, argued that her Christian beliefs would not allow her to marry two people of the same sex: ‘For a question of Christian principles, I cannot do it, because in the Bible God doesn’t approve of this way of living,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect to be applauded, and there are people that will condemn me, but I don’t care, because I don’t want God to condemn me.’
Indeed, Covella’s declaration has been attacked as ‘prejudiced, discriminatory and illegal’ by Pedro Mouration, the vice-president of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI). A lawyer for the Argentinean Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans (Falgbt) has raised the possibility of legal action against her for failure to comply with her duties as a public servant. This could result in her removal as a Justice of the Peace. The one prominent figure who has come to Covella’s aid is Elisa Carrió, head of the Civic Coalition and a candidate for the presidency on two occasions.
Carrió insists that ‘There should exist an option for conscientious objection.’ Throughout the debate, she has tried to present herself as a moderate, someone who has tried to unite the two sides. Yet her own position on the matter is bewilderingly incoherent. After the vote she claimed that she was ‘very content because the rights have been recognised,’ yet abstained from voting herself on the grounds of her Catholic beliefs, arguing that ‘marriage is a sacrament.’ Her alternative proposal was to eliminate marriage from the Civil Code altogether and introduce what she called a ‘Family Union,’ to reserve the term ‘marriage’ strictly for Catholicism.
This would mean not only that homosexual ‘unions’ would be placed in a lower category, but also that non-Catholic heterosexuals would see their marriages downgraded. The journalist Horacio Verbitsky argues that Carrió’s proposal is ‘Tantamount to treating them [homosexuals] like a plague: if they were permitted to legally unite, it would be necessary to change the name of the institution in order not to contaminate it.’ Carrió also accused the former president Néstor Kirchner of using the issue as an excuse to attack the Church, because ‘he loves to divide.’ This was an accusation echoed across the press in Argentina: that the Kirchners’ professed commitment to equal rights is really just another weapon with which to attack the Catholic Church.
While Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had offered her support to the bill, her husband and predecessor Néstor Kirchner only chose to intervene once the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, had referred to the bill as ‘an initiative of the Devil’ and ‘a destructive attempt against the plan of God.’ This incendiary language belies Bergoglio’s previous appeals for greater harmony and less confrontation between the different sections of Argentinean society. The Kirchners are constantly accused of trying to divide Argentina and of picking fights with the Church, but with regard to this issue it was the campaign orchestrated by the Church and other religious groups that was aggressive and divisive.
The Church and its supporters repeatedly represented the gay marriage bill as an attack on heterosexual marriage and indeed upon human civilization itself. Senator Juan Pérez Alsina argued that ‘Marriage between a man and a woman has existed for centuries, and is essential for the perpetuation of the species.’ The campaign against the bill implied that the approval of gay marriage would place heterosexual marriage – and therefore the human race - in mortal danger. Yet the Church fails to grasp that the new legislation on marriage grants formal legal recognition to a state of affairs that already exists. The prohibition on gay marriage never prevented anyone from being homosexual; nor even did it prevent homosexuals from adopting children. There are already children with same-sex parents in Argentina. The key difference now with regard to adoption is that gay couples can adopt as couples.
Argentina now becomes only the second nation in the Americas after Canada to legalize gay marriage. The issue is now expected to assume new importance across the continent. Uruguay could be the next to follow suit. Uruguay already has some of the most extensive LGBT rights in Latin America. In 2007 it became the first country in Latin America to permit same-sex civil unions nationwide. The adoption of children by same-sex couples is also permitted. Last year a reform of the adoption system extended greater protection to children in families with same-sex parents. There are strong anti-discrimination laws in place, and José Mujica’s left-wing coalition is thought to be amenable to the notion of same-sex marriage.
Despite the loud and prominent protests from religious groups, opinion polls on the issue showed that a majority of Argentineans were in favour of extending the right of marriage to same-sex couples. The new law is not only a victory for those who believe in equal rights, but also a victory for Argentinean democracy, which resisted being held to ransom by a powerful minority. Despite the immense power the Church still holds, Argentina is a secular democracy and the right of marriage is a legal right. There can be no justification in withholding it on the basis of sexuality. As a friend commented to me the week the law was passed, ‘This says good things about us as Argentineans.’
