Three months after the approval of the law, the first same-sex couples get married in Chile
Two couples, one of women and one of men, celebrated this Thursday the first same-sex marriages in Chile, when the law approved at the end of 2021 after years of struggle by organizations defending the rights of the community LGBTQ+. In addition to allowing marriage, the new law recognizes the filiative rights of both parents over their children, eliminates homosexuality as a cause for wrongful divorce and recognizes unions contracted abroad.
Javier Silva, of 38 years, and Jaime Nazar, 39, managed to fulfill their dream of getting married after seven years together and two children together, conceived by a surrogate mother. «It is a very important step for the countrySilva pointed out after posing for the wedding photos. The other of the couples that premiered this right in Chile was that of consolation morales y Paul Heuser, together for 18 years, with a daughter in common, and who already believed that the day would never come to legalize their relationship like any other couple.
Boric congratulates the newlyweds
The bill was presented in 2017 thanks to the impulse of the former socialist president Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018), but was stalled for nearly four years in Parliament. The current president, the leftist Gabriel boric, has congratulated the couples on Twitter for being the first to marry under the Equal Marriage Law. "To continue advancing for a Chile with equal rights and freedoms for all people”, he wrote in his account.
Since 2015, homosexual couples could only have a Civil Union Agreement that guaranteed almost all the rights stipulated by marriage, but without the possibility of adoption and or rights of filiation of children, something that the new law changes. According to the national survey «Same-sex couples vs. same-sex marriage", Realized by Movil in November last year, nearly 83% plan to marry, while 91,8% will annul their civil unions to get married.
