Same-Sex Unions Could Be In Store for Peru

In yet could be another huge step back for the Roman Catholic Church, depending on the results of upcoming elections, Peru may join the list of South and Central American nations that have granted legal recognition to same sex couples. Once again I find it interesting - and discouraging - that nations once viewed as backward and inferior to the USA are moving toward making their constitutions' guarantees of equality real while the USA clings to fundamentalist religious backwardness and religious based discrimination and bigotry. As I have noted before, I wonder at times if I won't find myself leaving the USA in the future for some country that affords LGBT individuals full legal equality. Lezgetreal and Mombian both have coverage of this development in Peru. Here are highlights from Lezgetreal:
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A leading candidate for Peru’s president,Former President Alejandro Toledo, has said this week he will push for the legalization of gay and lesbian civil unions in if he is re-elected as that country’s chief executive.
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[The] Civil Unions proposal is included under Toledo’s the eighth point government plan titled “All Peruvians are Equal,” and calls for sending to the Peruvian Congress a bill to approve civil unions without distinction of gender. Said Toledo of his civil union proposal, “it is a question of principles, it aims to recognize the full civil rights of citizens and to be a step, among others, to achieve social inclusion of all Peruvians
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Meanwhile, the leftist Fuerza Social party has gone one better and said it would promote same-sex marriages.
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But In a country where about 80 percent of the population is Catholic, needless to say, both proposals have come under attack by the Catholic Church. The Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, has said both proposals are an “error” and added, “It is a proposal made by a political party and we will see what the population says. The Church teaches something else, but I think politicians present topics that I don’t know if the population accepts or not.”
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According to a survey published in August, over 70% of Peruvians said they are opposed to the same-sex marriage, however the latest national polls have Toledo and his party leading the field of presidential and congressional candidates for April elections.