Chilean President Michelle Bachelet on
Monday signed a bill that recognizes gay and lesbian couples with
civil unions.
Bachelet, who endorsed marriage
equality during her campaign, signed the measure during a ceremony at
the Chilean capital, the Washington
Blade reported.
“The civil unions law is a
vindication in the struggle for sexual diversity rights,” Bachelet
said.
The bill was first introduced in 2011
by former President Sebastián
Piñera, but went nowhere
until Bachelet took over. Lawmakers rallied behind civil unions in
an attempt to cut off an expected marriage debate. During a CNN
Chile appearance, Senator Ivan Moreira (UDI) called civil unions
a “lesser evil.”
Bachelet's signing ceremony at the
Presidential Palace in Santiago was attended by members of the LGBT
rights group Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation and
Andres Ignacio Rivera Duarte, a transgender rights activist.
“Today is a historic day for sexual
diversity,” Rolando Jimenez, director of the Movement for
Homosexual Integration and Liberation, said in a statement. “The
state for the first time recognizes that there is not just one way to
make a family. From today the state protects family diversity and
takes responsibility for historic injustices based upon prejudices
and taboos that never should have existed.”
The bill cleared the National Congress
in January and the Chilean Constitutional Court upheld its
constitutionality less than two weeks ago.