Colombia rules gay couples must be granted same rights as straight
Neal Broverman, from Advocate.com reports that – in a historic decision delivered Wednesday – Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled same-sex couples must be granted the same rights as heterosexuals in common-law marriages.
From Advocate.com: The court’s decision means Colombia’s gay couples will be awarded dozens of rights that straight, unmarried couples have enjoyed for years and follows other recent rulings that have won the nation’s same-sex couples inheritance, pension, health, and social security rights.
The Colombian LGBT rights group Colombia Diversa, human rights group Dejusticia, and the Group for Public Interest Rights from the University of the Andes were responsible for the successful suit, filed last April.
Uruguay is the only other Latin American country to recognize same-sex unions.
The title of the original reports in El Tiempo were misleading and indicated that the court had granted same-sex couples “full rights” as those granted to heterosexual couples.
This is not the case. The ruling does extend some rights including the right of a same-sex partner not to incriminate his or her partner in court, inheritance rights for persons in military service and, by one account I read, immigration rights for the foreign partner of a Colombian citizen.
I’ll probably be updating my blog later today with additional information:
http://blabbeando.blogspot.com