by SUSAN ABAD
Social prejudice undermines some advancement in recognition of homosexuals rights and sparks violence.
For the past four years, Colombia has appeared to be one of the region´s leaders in advancing the rights of gay couples.
In October 2007, the country´s Constitutional Court established that homosexual couples living together for more than two years, could enroll their partner in the public health system. In April 2008, it ruled that members of same-sex couples have the right to his or her partner´s pension should he or she pass away, a right that had been only afforded to heterosexual couples. And, in January 2009, the court changed 42 provisions in about 20 laws to achieve equality between heterosexual and homosexual couples, but said its decision was only for patrimonial effects and did not alter the country’s current concept of family, which is union between man and woman for procreation purposes.
While all of these rules left the unions of same-sex couples to a level very similar to marriage, and made Colombia a pioneer in Latin America LGBT legislation, “in practice, it also awakened a strong social resisistance, a high level of homophobia and an inability of the [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] LGBT community to participate in political and public arena, [and] without guarantees of their rights and permanently revictimized, made invisible and forgotten,” Wilson Castañeda, president of Fundación Caribe Afirmativo, a LGBT rights organization focusing on the Caribbean region of Colombia, told Latinamerica Press.
Intolerance and prejudice
According to a the report “All of the Responsabilities, Few Rights,” published by Colombia Diversa, a LGBT rights organization, found that between 226 members of the LGBT community were killed between 2006 and 2009, 83 of them simply because of their sexual orientation.
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via WIP