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

Colombia Says Goodbye to a Great One

Joe Arroyo, 1955-2011

Joe Arroyo, the Cartagena-born salsa singer, died this morning.

'El Joe' began singing in Cartagena dives when he was only eight and went on to create his own sound, mixing salsa, cumbia, parra and other musical styles from Colombia's Caribbean coast. The result was nicknamed the Joeson.

Arroyo had long suffered health problems, due at least in part from years of substance abuse. He died of heart failure in early this morning in the city of Barranquilla. Arroyo was known as the 'King of the Carnaval of Barranquilla.'

Arroyo integrated lots of Afrocolombian spirit and historical consciousness. One of his biggest hits was 'Rebellion,' about couple brought as slaves from Africa.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Almost 200 Years On, Bolívar's In A New Battle

Tests proved this was Bolivar's skeleton - but not what killed him. 

Almost two centuries ago, Simón Bolívar, who liberated northern South America from Spanish rule, died in Santa Marta on the Colombian coast.

Nearly 200 years later, El Libertador is still a political football.

Simon Bolivar, murder victim?

According to most historians, Bolívar died of tuberculosis. But Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez, who worships Bolívar so intensely that he renamed his country after the Caracas-born warrior, refused to accept such a simple interpretation of history. Last year, Chávez ordered Bolívar's remains exhumed, saying it was a "moral obligation" to ascertain the revolutionary leader's cause of death, which Chávez blamed on the 'oligarchy.'

The move produced lots of ridicule because under Chávez Venezuela has suffered one of the world's highest homicide rates, and the president has paid little attention to the problem.

Chávez isn't alone in disputing the TB theory. Last year, an expert at Johns Hopkins University concluded that Bolívar's symptoms matched those of arsenic poisoning - but pointed out that back in those days arsenic was used as a medical treatment and was often in drinking water.

The dispute over Bolívar's cause of death seems to represent the social and national tensions in the region's politics. Chavéz often rails against the wealthy and 'oligarchs,' whom he now suspects of killing Bolívar. Venezuela's leftist government and Colombia's conservative government have experienced repeated tensions. And   so the fact that the Caracas-born Bolívar died in Colombia produces convenient villians for Chávez. In contrast, Francisco de Paula Santander, Bolívar's great political rival, whom Chávez has suggested murdered Bolívar, was born in what is today Colombia.

Now, the results of the post-, post-, post-mortem autopsy are in - and they don't help.

Venezuela's vice president said the analysis had confirmed that the remains belong to Bolívar - but that the cause of death wasn't clear.

Hugo Chavez, a new Bolívar? 

But Chávez, who has been fighting cancer, still insisted that Bolívar was murdered, altho he admitted "I don't have proof."

Perhaps this is a case of what psychologists call 'projection.' Chávez sometimes seems to believe himself to be Bolívar's reincarnation, and he has often announced alleged plots to assasinate him - altho he's almost never offered evidence.

There are other parallels. Towards the end of his life, Bolívar wanted to be made president-for-life and even declared himself dictator. And during his 12 years in power, Chávez has become increasingly authoritarian and sometimes said that he intends to rule for another ten or twenty years.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Even Drivers Have Their Day

Celebrating the Virgen del Carmen, protector of drivers. 

In case you've been wondering what all of those bangs, which sound like gunshots or firecrackers, have been about, they apparently were the second.

The Virgin of Carmen

Last week was the commemoration of the Virgen del Carmen, protector of drivers. And they've been celebrating.

In Bogotá's chaotic traffic, the virgin has her work cut out for her.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

An End to Loosies?

Opened cigarette boxes offer 'loosies' along Ave. Jimenez.

Update: As of November, nothing's changed in the sale of loose cigarettes. A street vendor, after selling a pair of loosies to a young couple, says 'Well, we can't die of hunger,' and points out that the vendor earns much more by selling cigarettes by the stick than by the box. She pointed out that neighboring liquor stores also sold alcohol illegally to minors. When the police come by, they hide the open boxes, she said. The only way to end this practice is with sting operations.

On Thursday, a law took effect prohibiting all cigarette advertising and, more controversally, the sale of 'loosies' or single cigarettes.

Most of the public commentary I've heard about the 'loosies' prohibition has been negative: it will hurt the incomes of the informal vendors and small shopkeepers who sell single cigarettes; by making full packs the only option, smokers will smoke nor, not less; the law is unenforceable.

Building a future market: tobacco company contractors
interview young people about their smoking habits
in La Candelaria, a university neighborhood.

The first two criticisms miss the point. Yes, an end to loose cigarette sales will cut vendors' incomes. But, if vendors' incomes were the top priority, then we should give them license to sell heroin, cocaine and pornography to anybody who wants them, as well. On the second, I doubt whether, on balance, many people would smoke more without loosies, but this law's goal is not to affect adult smokers, who have a right to continue their habit. Access to cheap, single cigarettes, which can be bought on the street starting at about 150 pesos, or a dime, gets lots of kids started smoking and starts them on a lifelong addiction. If they had to shell out for a whole pack, they might buy a candy instead - or even save their coins.

A lifelong market? young person smokes on La Plaza del Chorro. 

On the other hand, critics are right that this law will likely not be enforced, altho it could be. A local shopkeeper tells me that cigarettes sell for about one-third more when vended singly than when sold by the pack. That gives vendors a big economic incentive to open cigarette packs and sell the sticks one by one. 

Expect shopkeepers to keep their opened packs under the counter. If police or health authorities question them, they'll just explain that those ten opened packs are the ones they are smoking themselves.

In a neighborhood shop. This space
had contained a cigarette ad. 

The only way to catch single-stick sellers would be with sting operations: employing people to try to buy single cigarettes. But Colombian police don't use such strategies.

The tobacco companies have removed lots of the cigarette advertising which has papered this city. But they haven't given up on their battle on young Colombians' hearts and lungs. This afternoon, I watched young people interviewing other young people about their smoking and cigarette buying habits. They appear to focus only on young men and women - after all, that's tobacco's future market.

A Marlboro sign on a city bus. 

The warning says 'Smoking causes abortion.' If abortion is mostly prohibited, then why is smoking permitted?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Un-Decision On the Minimum Drug Dosage

A minimum dose?

Colombia's Constitutional Court has decided to not decide on the legality of carrying a 'minimum dosage' of drugs.  It ruled the other day that a lawsuit aiming to legalize possession of small amounts of drugs was incorrectly written, and must be rewritten and resubmitted.

Carrying a 'minimum dosage' of drugs was legalized in 1994 by the Supreme Court, which ruled that personal drug use was part of the "free development of the personality" guaranteed by Colombia's 1991 Constitution. But opponents of the minimum dose, led by then-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, argued that it promoted drug use and made it hard to arrest drug dealers, who kept only the minimum dose amount on their persons. In Dec. 2009, Congress prohibited the minimum dose, altho it didn't specify punishments for violators and decreed only medical attention for addicts.

The law had depenalized the possession of 20 grams of marijuana or 2 grams of bazuco - a cheap form of crack cocaine - among other drugs.

As a result, today it's common to see police patting down and taking away young men for carrying a bit of pot. But how illegal drug consumption has changed is unclear - I can't find any up-to-date statistics on trends in Colombian drug consumption. According to this 2010 story, Colombian young people consume drugs at a higher rate than the youths neighboring nations. For example, the survey also found that 2.5% of Colombian university students acknowledged using cocaine, compared to a half percent or less in the other countries.  But this applies to both illegal drugs and to alcohol and could reflect economic and cultural differences: Bolivia and Ecuador are substantially poorer than Colombia and those two nations and Peru are much more indigenous. And some of the numbers look doubtful to me: can it really be true that only 11.5% of Colombian university students had used marijuana during the past year - but 90% had consumed alcohol? Or could it be that, because pot was then illegal, many students feared admitting using it?

A 'free development of the personality' strikes me as a rotten way to justify the use of hard drugs such as cocaine and crack. Some people can handle them, but the brilliant singer Amy Winehouse freely developed her personality to death at age 27, and every day I see the wreckage of alcohol and drug addiction wandering Bogotá's streets. Legalizing and regulating drugs is the least-bad policy not because drugs are good, but because users tend to obtain them anyway. And prohibition just turns people with problems, like Winehouse, into criminals. If Winehouse's vices were legal ones, perhaps she would have been more open about her problems and obtained help sooner - perhaps. We just don't know.

If prohibitionism places some barriers against drug consumption, they aren't many, and studies have shown that treatment and education are much more cost effective and humane ways to discourage use. And imprisoning people for using drugs can ruin lots of lives and cost society lots of money, whereas its effect on dissuading users is questionable. However, the legal status of the minimum dosage is really marginal to the broader  impacts of prohibition, which drives the drug trade's huge profits into the coffers of outlaw organizations, such as Colombia's guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug cartels.

Leaders ought to try not only depenalizing the minimum dosage, but legalizing drugs generally, to take them out of the hands of criminals.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Armless Weaver of La Septima

Morales attracts an audience working on Seventh Ave. 

Many people complain about poverty. Many complain about violence. And many complain about physical disabilities.

Odalis Yaneth Morales has faced all of those, and kept looking forward.

'Handing' a hat to a customer.

Many days, you'll find her weaving handicrafts on the sidewalk of Seventh Ave. in downtown Bogotá. The black and white rings, hats, bags and bracelets would be impressive works by anybody. But Morales has no hands or arms. She does all of her work with her toes.

Morales grew up on the Senu indigenous territory in Cordoba Department, where she said that making handicrafts is about the only employment available. She was born without arms and learned the trade from her mother.

"I didn't have hands, so I had to do it with my feet," she said.

Passing pesos to a customer.

But she earned little in the indigenous territory, which, besides being extremely poor, has at times been attacked by outlaw paramilitary groups. In addition, she wanted to study. So, two years ago, she moved to Bogotá, where she often sets up her workshop - when the police let her - on the west side of Ave. Septima a block or two south of Jimenez Ave.

Recently, a television program profiled Morales and someone who saw the show is contributing money so that she can study psychology, which she is doing via internet with a Colombian university.

Nearby, Embera indigenous women sell their own handicrafts. But Morales is the main attraction for passersby, who gather around marvelling at the adroitness of her toes. A few people by crafts; others drop coins into her basket. Undoubtedly, the feats Morales accomplishes with her feet serve as lessons to many children. "Now, you see why you shouldn't complain about little things!" mothers admonish.

On a recent afternoon I found Morales working by the window of the Golden Palace Casino, where people seek easy money. She lifts up a hat or a bracelet with her foot and hands it to a prospective customer. She receives the money and makes change with her toes, then folds the bills up tightly and stores them.

I ask her for her name.

She writes her name in a neat 'hand.'

"I'll write it down," she says, and grasps my notebook with her toes and writes in a 'hand' that's much neater than mine.

I ask Morales whether she regrets having been born without arms.

"No, not at all," she says, "it's God's will."

Morales' goal is to obtain her degree in psychology and return to work with her people.

Certainly, her best lesson will be the example she's set.

As of June 2014, Morales has a small shop near San Victorino Plaza.

Artesanias Odalis: Cra 13A No. 12-13 Local 02. Pasaje Comercial La Fortaleza. 
Cel: 311-414-6865 / 300-715-7060. Land line: 795-5951. E-mail: artesaniasodalis@hotmail.com .

Related Post:

Born Without Hands, She Needs No Handout

A customer admires herself in the window of the Golden Palace Casino.

A beggar with two good arms. 

Other entries about interesting people:

The Box Man of La Jimenez.

Jose, the rapper of La Jimenez.

The Lost Man who Guides Tourists.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours