Not Quite Marriage Equality

These folks were demonstrating in favor of 'marriage equality' today in front of Bogotá's Parque Nacional.

Legislation to legalize gay marriage failed in Congress recently. But a Supreme Court ruling requires notaries to provide same-sex couples with an option similar to marriage. So, last week the organization of notaries, who register relationships, issued a document titled 'Formalization and solemnization of the contractual relationship,' to formally unite same-sex couples.

The document does not use the term 'matrimony,' but such couples are to have nearly all the same rights as married heterosexual couples, except for adoption. Also, significantly, notaries are not permitted to refuse to perform same-sex unions by pleading conscientous objection, even tho the Catholic Church has said that performing such a union is a sin. (Doctors are allowed to refuse to perrform an abortion by pleading concientous objection.)

In any case, this is a step forward for gay couples, and I expect that Colombia will legalize gay marriage within a few years.

The demonstrators in the National Park said they're not satisfied with the notaries' policy. But, I suspect that if you'd asked them a decade ago, they wouldn't have hoped to have gotten this far by now.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Gay Marriage Postponed - Again

A gay man holds aloft a sign saying that he supported religious freedom in Colombia.

 Legislators postponed a vote on legalizing gay marriage - once again. But not before a conservative congressman called gay sex "scatological and for purely recreative ends." I wonder whether he intends to prohibit all non-reproductive sex, and how he expects to do that.

Riot police line the Congress building. But these crowds were peaceful. 

Gay marriage opponents wave Colombian flags. 

Gay marriage supporters unfurl a diversity banner on Plaza Bolivar.

Authorities had set up a barrier in front of the Congress building to separate the anti- and pro-gay marriage demonstrators, on the left and right respectively.

A gay marriage opponent, left, and a proponent, right, debate across the barrier. 

A gay marriage supporter yells across the barrier.

City Hall, headed by leftist Mayor Gustavo Petro, didn't hide its preferences, with this banner saying 'Equality for Everybody.'

Gay rights activists display signs pointing out that Colombia has no state religion and that the Bible includes arcane rules that almost nobody obeys, such as a prohibition against eating shellfish. 

A gay marriage opponent holds up a sign saying that 'Bad has been called good and good called bad.'

A woman in the anti-gay marriage crowd holds a Bible in her uplifted hands.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

No Gay Marriage - For Now

A crowd of gay marriage opponents wave colorful banners. 

Hundreds of people demonstrated outside of Congress today, some for, and most against, a gay marriage bill which was coming up for a vote. Last year, the Supreme Court ordered Parliament to either legalize gay marriage or create something equivalent for same-sex couples. If the legislature did not act, then same-sex couples are to be allowed to register their relationships as marriages.

Gay marriage appeared headed for defeat, but the vote was postponed until next week for technical reasons. But whether it's next week, next year or five years from now, gay marriage will inevitably become legal in Colombia, as it has recently in Uruguay and Argentina.

These women's signs assert that the court did not order congress to legalize gay marriage. 

A small group of gay and lesbian activists.

Demonstrators carry a gay rights rainbow flag beside another group's sign saying that a family consists of a mother and a father. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Christian Army on Plaza Bolivar

Religious activists rally today on Plaza Bolivar.

'Marriage is a man and a woman.'

Religious believers rallied on Plaza Bolivar this afternoon in opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Earlier in the day, gay rights activists had staged a same-sex kiss-a-thon in the plaza to protest an insulting statement by a congressman who called being gay 'a problem.'

Congress is considering reforming laws on several hot-button issues: regulating euthenasia, expanding abortion rights and creating same-sex unions with many of the same rights as marriage, altho they would have a different name.

Participants in the same-sex kiss-a-thon also on Plaza Bolivar earlier in the day.

A women's prayer circle. The signs they are wearing denounce abortion and same-sex marriage.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The More the Church Changes...

...the more it stays the same.

That seems apparent from the appointment of Colombia's latest (and only voting) Cardinal, the Archbishop of Bogotá, Rubén Salazar Gómez. He's the third Colombian currently in the elite group of 'princes' of the Roman Catholic Church.

This is an honor for Colombia and gives Colombia a bit more influence in the Catholic hierarchy - but it doesn't bode well for the church's future.

According to this profile in El Tiempo, Salazar is a dynamic man whose career has been marked by concern for the poor, and, in particular, for displaced people. But Salazar's ideological positions are doctrinaire conservative: he opposes euthenasia, abortion, gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples.

"What does it mean to die with dignity?" Salazar asks in the article. "That a doctor injects a sick person with a poison or a lethal injection?"

Salazar doesn't explain what makes that sort of painless, quiet death less dignified than a long, agonizing one full of suffering and uncertainty for the sick and his or her relatives.

Those ideological positions aren't surprising, of course. After all, Pope Benedict just ordered the United States' largest organization of Catholic nuns to reform for not sufficiently denouncing abortion, gay marriage, etc.

But, in a world that's steadily liberalizing, the Catholic Church looks increasingly outdated and irrelevent. Perhaps principled, too; but that might not help it hold onto believers as young people increasingly see precepts such as not using contraception as absurd. Colombia, for example, is discussing regulating euthenasia, which is already de facto legal here, as well as expanding abortion rights as well as those for same-sex couples.

Camilo Torres, the guerrilla-priest.
Would he have opposed
gay marriage and euthenasia?

It's a far cry from the 1960s, when Colombia was at the center of the progressive Liberation Theology  movement within the Catholic Church. So progressive, in fact, that several Catholic priests, most (in)famously Camilo Torres, ran off and joined guerrilla groups. Pope Benedict has done his best to snuff out the remnants of Liberation Theology. Salazar seems to personify the dedication to the poor, which is admirable, but seems less concerned about some of society's other unfortunates.

Observers of Catholic issues have noted that of the seven new appointees, who will officially don the red hats on Nov. 24, none are Europeans and all but one are from developing countries. In contrast, most of the 12 cardinals appointed in February were from Europe. Benedict may be adding geographical variety to the College of cardinals. But apparently not ideological variety.

Vatican observers noted that this is the first time since the 1920s that a Pope has appointed two groups of new Cardinals in the same year. Is this an indication that Benedict is not as healthy as he appears, and wants to pack the College with conservatives in order to influence the vote for his succesor? Or, does this have something to do with the Vatileaks scandal (in which a Colombian played a part)?

In any case, if the College were to elect a new Pope today, Salazar's would be the only Colombian vote, since the other two Colombians wearing red hats, Pedro Rubiano Sáenz and Dario Castrillón Hoyos, are over 80 and therefore no longer eligible to vote in papal elections.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Separate But Equal For Colombian Same-Sex Couples?

A couple during this year's Gay Pride Parade. 

Gay couples can't get married, Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled today - but the legislature should invent a relationship to give them equal status.

The court ruled that the 1991 Constitution, which defines a family as a "free decision of a man and a woman to enter into matrimony," restricts marriage to a heterosexual union. However, it also said that clauses in the Constitution which guarantee equality for all and special protection for minorities require the legislature to provide an alternative legal relationship for same-sex couples. The court gave the legislature one year to develop such an alternative legal relationship.

If the legislature doesn't act, the court said, gay couples can register their relationships, but it still wouldn't be called 'marriage.' At present, same-sex couples who've cohabited for at least two years can register civil unions which carry most of the rights of marriage.

The high court might very well have ruled the other way, by basing its decision on the Constitution's guarantees of equality and the "free development of the personality." But, perhaps considering that Colombia's generally conservative, Catholic society is not ready for gay marriage, the court decided to stop half-way. Most likely, however, Colombians would have accepted gay matrimony, just as they have legal abortions, same sex civil unions, the right to personal drug use and other progressive court rulings.

When Colombia's Constitutional Convention wrote its surprisingly progressive document in 1991, only Denmark had recognized same sex 'domestic partnerships,' and most likely few Colombian politicians believed that gay marriage would ever become an issue in this highly-Catholic nation. I suspect that such a progressive document written today would take same-sex marriage for granted.

LGBT signs during the 2011 Gay Pride Parade.

By handing the issue over to the legislature, which has traditionally been conservative, the court has pretty much eliminated the chance for formal same-sex marriage, at least barring a continental shift in the legislature's political constitution. The only sizeable political party supporting same-sex marriage is the far-left Polo Democratico. Most likely, some members of the Green and the Liberal parties would also support the concept - but those parties belong to the conservative governing coalition.

Gay pride marchers carry signs demanding that the court provide equal marriage rights. 

Related posts: Gay Marriage in Colombia?

2011 Gay Pride Parade

Chapinero, Bogotá's Gay Neighborhood

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Gay Marriage in Colombia?

Marchers during this year's gay pride parade wave signs demanding equal rights from the court. 

Colombia's Constitutional Court is to rule by July 22 on whether or not same-sex couples should be able to marry in Colombia.

According to El Tiempo's analysis, the justices are about equally split on the matter. Advocates argue that gay marriage is a matter of equal rights, opponents that it violates religious principles and would deprive children of the right to be raised by a father and a mother.

Signs during Bogotá's 2011 gay pride parade demand equal rights for sexual minorities. 

The court already considered the issue once, last November, and ruled that the proponents should rewrite and resubmit their case. In the past, after asking rights advocates to resubmit their cases, the justices have ruled in the advocates' favor.

But is conservative, highly-Catholic Colombia ready to see two men or two women walking down the aisle? Actually, it's sort of already happened, since same-sex civil unions have existed here for several years. Of course, the Catholic Church and other religious groups will complain. But they've complained about the legalization of abortion, euthanasia and other issues, with little effect. In any case, the Catholic Church's moral standing on some of these issues is less than immaculate.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours