Gay Rights Agenda: #1) Equality #2) See first point

Right: Those for and against increased civil rights

Strangers, neighbors and friends walked out of their homes into the streets, or just hung out of their windows and banged pots and pans as loudly as they could, in the cold of the winter evening.

At 8pm on Wednesday evening in Buenos Aires and for half an hour, Argentina’s majority showed their support for the same-sex marriage proposal being debated in the country’s Senate. At 4am the next morning the law passed making Argentina the 10th country in the world to legislate full marriage rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. This is a part of a global movement forward for civil rights and a part of the global disintegration of the old right-wing, backward conservative ideology.

In Europe, nearly every country has either a same-sex marriage law or the half-way laws recognizing civil unions. Only the former Stalinist countries of Eastern Europe have so far bucked the trend, many having passed laws making marriage an exclusively heterosexual entity.

Globally, over 40 countries are now debating the issue of same-sex marriage. Many more countries have outlawed discrimination against the LBGT community, but have not yet passed the economic and political laws that begin to establish a firmer equality with the heterosexual majority. At stake is the financial issues of healthcare, pensions and property rights.
Also at stake is the power and prestige of the old backward religious establishment who are fighting against full equality in the arena of child custody and adoption.

For almost 20 years the Netherlands has had same-sex marriage rights. This year Argentina joins Iceland and Spain who make up the 10 countries with such laws. Many, many cities have passed these civil rights laws including Mexico City. The Mayor of Mexico City, has offered a free vacation to Argentina’s first same-sex married couple.

Yet on Tuesday in Buenos Aires the Catholic Church managed to mobilize a huge 60,000 people to protest the discussion on same-sex marriage. This is the same “pro-life” organization that never organized a single protest against Argentina’s 7-year dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s that murdered 30,000 leftists and trade unionists.

Argentina has come a long way in its extension of civil and democratic rights since 1983. While 92% identify as catholics, some 70% support the rights of the gay community to marry and all those rights that follow. They will not be told what they should think. As one leading Argentinian activist put it, “We are now a fairer, more democratic society!”