Opponents of a gay marriage bill being
debated in Argentina are taking their message to the streets.
The bill was approved in May by
Argentina's lower house, the Chamber of Deputies (la Camara de
Diputados) and is being reviewed in the Senate General Law Committee.
The committee has taken its hearing on the road, stopping at the
cities of Salta, Tucuman, San Juan and Mendoza. The tour ends on
June 28 and the full Senate is expected to take up the measure on
July 14.
In those provincial capitals, opponents
have begun protesting the proposal, LosAndes.com reported.
A large nationwide demonstration was
organized on May 31 by Roman Catholic and evangelical churches
opposed to gay marriage.
Marriage is “the union of a man and a
woman and not between persons of the same sex,” Daniel Grilletti,
an evangelical Baptist pastor with the Iglesia de las Casas, said.
The bill would give gay and lesbian
couples all the rights and obligations of marriage, including the
right to adopt children. A
recently approved gay marriage law in Portugal bans gay couples from
adopting.
Another protest is set for Saturday.
In the capital of Buenos Aires, opponents say they'll demonstrate
outside the Senate building and deliver a message to senators.
Organizers say they oppose the bill because a family consists of a
mom and dad. They are promoting the demonstration with fliers that
read: “I love you mom and dad.”
Whether sufficient support exists in
the Senate to approve the measure remains a difficult question to
answer. An equal number of senators have either publicly endorsed or
rejected the bill, but 17 senators have remained mum on their
position.
Argentine President Christina Fernandez
de Kirchner has said she would not block the measure from becoming
law, if approved by senators.
Five gay couples have married in the
country since December and another 60 have filed court challenges to
do the same. Just days before deputies debated the measure,
Alejandro
Luna and Gilles Grall, a Frenchman, became the fifth gay couple to
marry in Argentina.