The Argentine Senate received Thursday
a gay marriage bill approved last week by the Chamber of Deputies (la
Camara de Diputados), government news agency Telam reported.
The bill was assigned to the General
Law Committee chaired by Liliana Negre de Alonso.
Negre de Alonso said she disagreed with
giving gay couples the right to marry but added that she would not
block debate on the issue.
“I will guarantee that we'll add this
matter to the agenda because I have always guaranteed the debate,”
she said.
Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo
predicted the Senate would approve the bill.
A debate on the bill is not expected to
materialize until June. And passage remains uncertain. However, the
Front for Victory political block, whose members mostly back the
measure, control a larger percentage of seats in the Senate than in
the lower chamber. Still, they cannot approve the measure without
help from other parties.
The gay marriage bill advanced in the
Chamber of Deputies along a 125-to-109 vote after lawmakers debated
between moving on a bill that would give gay and lesbian couples the
right to marry – including the right to adopt – and a civil
unions bill that did not include gay adoption.
Argentine President Christina Fernandez
de Kirchner has said she would not block the measure from becoming
law, if approved by senators.
Gay marriage has dominated national
headlines since December when two men married for the first time in
Latin America. Just days before deputies debated the measure, two
men in Buenos Aires became the fifth gay couple to marry in
Argentina.
The Roman Catholic Church is strongly
opposed to the legislation.