The Argentine city of Lomas de Zamora
has approved a resolution urging senators to vote in favor of a gay
marriage bill, Inforegion.com reported.
City leaders approved the resolution on
an 8-1 vote, with an additional 8 lawmakers deciding to abstain.
The resolution was introduced by Juan
Maria Vinales, president of the local Partido Justicia political
block.
Vinales said Argentina's civil marriage
law could not be reconciled with the nation's constitution, which
claims equality for all people.
Lomas de Zamora is a city in the
province of Buenos Aires and is located next to the city of Buenos
Aires. It claims a population of slightly under 112,000.
Argentina's Senate began debate on a
gay marriage bill earlier in the month after lawmakers in the
country's lower house, the Chamber of Deputies (la Camara de
Diputados), approved the bill on May 6.
The measure has been assigned to the
General Law Committee and is not expected to reach the Senate floor
until July, where it will likely face a tight vote. The bill has an
even number of supporters and opponents among senators who answered a
DyN poll, but 17 senators remain unaccounted for.
Lomas de Zamora city councilors who
decided to abstain from voting on the resolution said they support
equal rights for gay men and lesbians but could not endorse marriage.
“I'm not against equal rights,”
Guzman Carasatorre said, “but as a Christian I believe in the union
of a man and a woman.”
The Roman Catholic Church is strongly
opposed to the legislation.
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,
Alejandro
Luna and Gilles Grall, a Frenchman, became the fifth gay couple to
marry in Argentina.
Earlier in the month, lawmakers
in Portugal legalized gay marriage.