A Bogota court has revoked a previous civilian court-ordered annulment of Colombia’s first gay marriage Thursday, considering the constitutional challenge to the marriage invalid.
MORE: Colombia judge annuls country’s first gay marriage
Gay right’s activists Colombia Diversa celebrated the ruling on their Twitter feed stating, “The order of the judge that annulled the first gay marriage in Colombia was revoked. The marriage stands.”
Último minuto, orden de juez que anulaba primer matrimonio homosexual en Colombia fue revocada. Matrimonio sigue vigente!
— Colombia Diversa (@ColombiaDiversa) October 24, 2013
Gay rights opponents from the Husband and Wife Foundation, who brought the constitutional challenge against the marriage to court, said that the Tribunal court did not rule on the whether the marriage was legal or illegal, only stating that it could not be challenged as an infringement of constitutional rights.
“This is not finalized, nor has the marriage been declared legal, much less constitutional,” said Huband and Wife representative to newspaper El Espectador. “It only says constitutional infringement order is not the mechanism to revise the ruling.”
The controversy surrounding gay marriage in Colombia comes after the country’s top Constitutional Court ordered the Congress in 2011 to pass legislation giving same-sex couples the right to civil marriage, and granting it automatically if no such legislation was passed before June 20, 2013. The Congress failed to pass any civil marriage legislation and this past July Colombian judges began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
MORE: Colombia gay rights proponents to fight annulment of same-sex marriage
In Latin America, both Argentina and Brazil have recognized same-sex marriages. While Colombia has not yet settled the question on the legality of same-sex marriage, it does recognize domestic partnerships for same-sex unions, although LBGT rights activists say equal marriage protection necessitates legal civil marriages for homosexual couples.
Sources
- Tribunal Superior dejó en firme primer matrimonio gay (El Espectador)