by Rex Wockner
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Following a referral from the Santiago Court of Appeals, Chile's Constitutional Court will take up a same-sex marriage case this week.
The court will consider a protection demand from MOVILH, the Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement, and three same-sex couples who want the nation's opposite-sex definition of marriage struck down on constitutional grounds.
The plaintiffs also seek to negate a law that blocks recognition of same-sex marriages entered into abroad.
MOVILH President Rolando Jimenez called the case a historic before-and-after moment for Chile's LGBT movement.
All three plaintiff couples seek to marry in Chile. In addition, one couple seeks recognition of their legal Canadian marriage, and another seek recognition of their legal Argentine marriage. The couples attempted to marry in Chile but were turned away by civil registry officials.
The lawsuit claims that Chile's ban on same-sex marriage and its refusal to recognize foreign same-sex marriages infringe a constitutional promise that all people "are born free and equal in dignity and rights" and a constitutional guarantee of "equal protection of the law in the exercise of rights," among other violations.
Should the Constitutional Court rule against same-sex marriage, activists plan to appeal to the Supreme Court and, if necessary, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
