‘Conservative’ Chilean president to introduce homosexual civil union legislation

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

SANTIAGO, July 13, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Chile’s president Sebastian Piñera, who bills himself as a social conservative and is known for his defense of the right to life, is preparing to introduce a bill in the nation’s congress instituting “civil unions” for homosexual couples, according to the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, which says that it has seen a recent draft of the legislation.

According to La Tercera, Piñera is aware that the legislation will anger part of the coalition that delivered him to power, but cites the pressure being applied to him by homosexualist organizations.

As LifeSiteNews reported on June 1, Piñera has resisted the creation of civil unions since his election in 2010, but announced his decision to capitulate following a national pressure campaign by the Chilean homosexualist Movement of Homosexual Integration and Liberation (MOVILH), which is organizing demonstrations and demanding the creation of homosexual “marriage.” The organization recently filed a suit with the nation’s Constitutional Tribunal to achieve its goal; the suit was accepted by the court.

Piñera’s move is unlikely to satisfy homosexualist organizations, which have expressed their rejection of the legislation as inadequate. In addition to MOVILH’s pressure campaign, Piñera is faced by the homosexualist Iguales Foundation and the international “human rights” organization Amnesty International, which claims that Chile is violating human rights treaties by refusing to create homosexual “marriage.”

“Making distinctions regarding sexual orientation or gender identity with regard to marriage legislation is not in line with international human rights treaties,” Ana Piquer of Amnesty International told the Chilean press recently.

Piquer cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, and the Interamerican Human Rights Convention - none of which mention homosexuality or the rights of homosexuals to marry.

Piquer made it clear that Piñera’s civil union law would not satisfy the organization.

“This idea of having a marriage that would be only for heterosexual people, and on the other hand, a contract which is not marriage, that has fewer rights involved, less protection for the parties and that would be open for homosexuals and heterosexual, would mean discrimination against homosexuals in and of itself,” she said. She also warned about further “international pressure” should the country continue to reject the demands of the homosexual lobby.

According to La Tercera, Piñera’s legislation proposes the creation of a Non-Matrimonial Living Agreement (Acuerdo de Conviviencia No Matrimonial or ACNM), which would civilly register homosexual unions after one year.  The ACNM is characterized as “a contract that two people, of the same or different sex, can celebrate with the purpose of regularizing their relationships derived from an affective life in common.”

In an apparent attempt to satisfy his socially conservative base, the ACNM “will not alter either the civil state of contracting parties nor establish relationships of parentage due to affinity with the parents of the other” according to the administration.