Will Chile become the fifth South American country to pass marriage equality?
Chile’s president Michelle Bachelet will formally introduce a bill to allow same-sex couples to get married.
The measure will be introduced on 28 August.
Chilean LGBTI advocacy group the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, has said the marriage and an adoption bill was reached as part of an agreemtn with Bachelet’s government in 2016.
However, it remains unclear whether the bill will also extend adoption rights.
The bill will change the language given at a ceremony, opening it up to same-sex couples.
It will read: ‘Marriage is a solemn contract by which two people, of the same or different sex, unite themselves, and for life, in order to live together, to procreate and to help each other.’
Bachelet campaigned for marriage equality in 2013. ‘Marriage equality,’ she said. ‘I believe we have to make it happen.’
President Michelle Bachelet says Chile ‘needs to make’ marriage equality happen
She also supports a bill that would allow trans Chileans to legally change their name and sex without surgery, hormonal treatments and psychiatric or psychological evaluations.
Bachelet also backs efforts to strengthen hate crime and anti-discrimination law against the LGBTI community.
In South America, same-sex marriage is legal in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay.
Chile’s civil union law came into effect in 2015.
by Joe Morgan
Source – Gay Star News
