Gay Marriage in Argentina Could Escalate Global Fight

(Dec. 30) -- On Monday, two Argentinian men became the first gay couple in Latin America to legally wed. But even as advocates celebrate that milestone, opponents of gay marriage are digging in to blunt the movement's global momentum.

The wedding between Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina's southernmost province, was by no means an isolated victory for gay rights groups in Latin America.

In 2002, Buenos Aires became the first Latin American city to permit same-sex civil unions. In 2007, Uruguay legalized civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. Ecuador did so in 2008. Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled this year that gay couples must be afforded all of the same rights as straight ones, and last week, Mexico City became the first Latin American capital to pass a law legalizing gay marriage.

"At the start of the decade, if you were gay and wanted to get married, you couldn't do it anywhere," said Hayley Gorenberg, the deputy legal director of Lambda Legal, a U.S. advocacy group for gay rights. "If you look at the progress since then, it's striking."

A quick survey of the globe illustrates Gorenberg's point. In Canada, the House of Commons made gay marriage legal nationwide in 2005. South Africa became the first country in Africa to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in 2006. In Europe, the decade saw gay marriage legalized in The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway and Sweden.

"I think that you're seeing an international movement, and if we who want to defend traditional marriage want to be successful, we're going to need to organize on that level as well," said Maggie Gallagher, syndicated columnist and the president the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay-marriage group.

In the United States, gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed five states in 2010 -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire -- as well as in the District of Columbia.

Still, Gallagher sees the tide shifting against the further expansion of U.S. gay marriage rights in 2009, In particular, she cites November's vote in Maine, in which voters repealed a law passed in the legislature that gave gays and lesbians full marriage rights, and December's action by the New York State Senate, rejecting a bill allowing gay marriage.

"The last few months were encouraging," Gallagher said. "We've put an end to the notion of inevitability."

As for 2010, Gallagher sees opportunity to "take back territory" in states like Iowa through voter referendums. She also hopes to pass new restrictions on gay marriage in states like Pennsylvania, Indiana and West Virginia.

Gorenberg says Lambda Legal is also ready for the fight and knows that voter referendums will play an integral part of what comes next. "I think the ballot box defeats show that minority groups are still vulnerable," Gorenberg says. "But now it's no longer a foregone conclusion that we will lose. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable that an unpopular minority could have had such success."

Meanwhile, while Di Bello and Freyre were celebrating their nuptials in Argentina, another first in the fight for gay marriage rights has not, so far, turned out as happily. In Malawi, where homosexual acts are punishable with a prison sentence of up to 14 years, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza defied that statute by publicly announcing their intent to marry with an engagement ceremony. As a result, the two have been arrested and charged with gross indecency.