Same-sex marriage is legal in more than thirty countries around the world

Chile gave a few days ago the green light to equal marriage and it became the eighth country in Latin America and the thirty-first to legalize it worldwide.

The historic bill had been under discussion for more than four years and now with its approval it will allow unions between people of the same sex, one of the greatest wishes of the LGTBI community in the country.

Same-sex marriage It is already recognized in more than 30 countries around the world. And it has been in the streets where this struggle originates through organizations and activists that seek to reduce discrimination against this group of the population and obtain rights.

With this decision, Chile follows in the wake of other Latin American countries that recently approved it, such as Costa Rica or Ecuador. Since 2015 in Chile, homosexual people could only unite under the legal figure of the Civil Union Agreement (AUC).

The equal marriage initiative was presented in 2017 thanks to the impulse of the former socialist president Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018), but it stalled And in a surprising turn of events, President Sebatián Piñera said this year that the time had “come” to approve it. The announcement fell like a jug of cold water among the most conservative sectors of the right, which in recent months managed to lengthen their discussion to the maximum.

In the case of Ecuador, the approval is recent as well. It was finalized on June 12, 2019.

Larry Aguas, Ecuadorian LGTBI activist and drag queen, comments that in the last two to three years lDiscrimination against this community has been reduced in the country, although it emphasizes that it would not be totally related to the legalization of equal marriage, if not rather a gender revolution that is being experienced throughout the world, although it mentions that there is still too much to do and achieve.

Equal marriage in Ecuador helped to make the issue visible as to which sectors that still do not have access to all this information and education, become aware that there is this minority ”, he says and adds that thanks to this advance, couples enjoy the same rights, although he says that adoption for homoparental couples is another issue for which they will continue to work.

It also refers that Another objective that the community has is to be able to reach a “trans job quota” to prevent these people from choosing jobs that risk their lives in the absence of opportunities.

For Waters It is essential to continue making visible all these transsexual or gender non-binary people, who consider that they are most affected, since they continue to suffer from different types of discrimination in health and employment issues, among others, situations that they have even had to experience.

However in the region, other countries They have been contemplating this right for years, like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay and several states of Mexico.

Mexico City was the first in Latin America to allow civil unions between people of the same sex, in 2007. Then, in 2009, it legalized marriage, which has been gradually allowed in 24 of the 32 Mexican states and Argentina was the first country to legalize equal marriage in 2010.

However, it was Europe that pioneered these advances. In 1989, Denmark was the first country to allow the first civil unions for gay couples.

But they were the Netherlands which, in April 2001, became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, granting them more rights.

Since then, 16 European countries have followed suit: Belgium, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Ireland, Finland, Malta, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom and, more recently, Switzerland, he refers Eph.

In other countries of the Old Continent such as Hungary, Croatia, Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus, Italy and the Czech Republic, only civil unions are allowed for same-sex couples.

Under this figure, Estonia became in October 2014 the first former Soviet republic to grant civil unions to homosexuals, this type of union does not recognize filiative rights.

Meanwhile, in the rest of America, Canada was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, in June 2005.

In the United States, it was not until June 2015 that the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage throughout the country. However, the nation’s first same-sex marriage was recorded in 1971 and was officially validated after a nearly half-century legal battle.

However, on the same continent Countries like El Salvador and Cuba have ruled out including equal marriage in their legal frameworks.

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, withdrew in September the constitutional reform proposal, prepared by his Government, which opened the possibility of legalizing therapeutic abortion and equal marriage, collects France 24.

On the other hand, in Cuba, what has motivated this blockade on the issue has been the rejection of a part of the population and of the Catholic and Evangelical churches. The island resigned from including gay marriage in its new Constitution approved in 2019.

But a few months ago, a commission was created on the island to draft a new Family Code, which should include homosexual marriage before being put to a vote in the National Assembly and later in a national referendum, so there is great expectation about the topic.

The same rejection of Cuba is experienced in the African continent where some thirty countries prohibit homosexuality. Only South Africa stands out, which legalized same-sex marriage since 2006.

For its part, in Asia, in Taiwan, Parliament legalized same-sex marriage in 2019, two years after a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court.

In Japan, where same-sex marriage is still prohibited, the Sapporo (North) District Court ruled in March 2021 that the non-recognition of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, something unprecedented.

In the Middle East, whose societies are very repressive, Israel is a timid exception. Although not illegal, gay marriage is not possible in Israel for lack of an institution empowered to declare it, but it is recognized when contracted abroad.

In Oceania, New Zealand legalized gay marriage in 2013. Australia allowed gay marriage in December 2017, by a vote of Parliament. (I)