LifeSiteNews reports:
The Senate of Columbia voted down a bill to create homosexual "marriage" yesterday by an overwhelming majority of 51-17, with 32 senators either not present or abstaining.
The defeat of the bill means that it will not pass to the lower Chamber of Deputies, and is effectively dead.
With the failure of this bill to pass the Senate, the article explains, now a civil union-type institution will take effect on July 20 in accordance with a court ruling. The unions will be called “solemn contractual bond[s]” and “will not include the right to adopt children.”
January 18, 2013 – 1:00 pm
Brazil has noticed what happened in France! When will the United States media catch up?
December 28, 2012 – 1:30 pm
Gay marriage is always inevitable -- until it isn't:
Uruguay's Senate has delayed until April a vote on a bill that would legalise gay marriage, amid calls for further analysis of the proposal.
The Marriage Equality Law, approved on 11 December by the lower house, was backed by the governing coalition.
But faced with demands for more discussion, senators opted to postpone the vote until after the summer recess.
If passed, the law would make Uruguay the second Latin American nation after Argentina to allow gay marriage.
... "out of respect for the parliamentary minorities", the draft law would be sent for discussion by a commission, the statement said.
The move highlights the controversy the proposed law has generated among some sectors of society in Uruguay. -- BBC
August 28, 2012 – 1:00 pm
Gay activists say it is absurd to argue that redefining marriage to be genderless opens the door to legal polygamous unions. Now it has happened. So what do they say?
Controversy has been sparked as the first civil union between three separate partners was registered in Tupã, in the Northwestern region of Sao Paulo state, Brazil last week. The three-person union has shocked religious groups in the country, and sparked further concerns that the traditional family unit is being further eroded by the current day society.
The actual declaration of the union between the man and two women was in fact made three months ago, but it finally became public this week.
Notary officer, Claudia do Nascimento Domingues, has explained that the three partners lived together and wanted to publicly declare their status in order to guarantee their rights. Checks were conducted to see if there was any legal impediment to the unions and the notary office has confirmed that none were found.
Attorney Nathaniel Batista dos Santos Junior oversaw the legal process of creating the three-way declaration. -- Global Christian Post
An update from LifeSiteNews:
Colombia’s Constitutional Court has issued a decision [late last week] declaring that homosexual couples constitute a “family,” but stopping short of giving them a right to “marry” each other.
In a decision issued yesterday evening, the Court decreed that the issue of “matrimony” between two people of the same sex is a matter for the National Congress to decide, and gave legislators two years to take up the issue.
... The jurists decreed that if the Congress does not pass legislation on the matter within that period, “the next day, same-sex couples will be able to go to a notary and legalize their union.”
... Although the Constitution expressly states that marriage is a union of a man and a woman, the president of the Court denied the relevance of that clause in the Constitution, claiming that it “does not mean that couples of the same sex are excluded from doing the same.”
"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."
