A Bogota judge annulled Colombia’s first gay marriage after anti-gay marriage group, the Husband and Wife Foundation, filed a constitutional challenge against an earlier ruling granting the homosexual couple a right to marriage, local media reported Wednesday.
Judge Eduardo Diaz ruled against the September ruling granting the marriage, stating the Constitution does not expressly grant the right to homosexual marriage.
Lawyer and director of the Husband and Wife Foundation, Javier Suarez, applauded the court’s decision. Suarez went on to call for the removal and criminal sanctions against judges who ruled in favor of homosexual marriage, who “support illegal acts due to the fact that they see homosexuality as a ‘human right’ when it is really a clinical and psychological problem.”
Representative of Women’s Link Worldwide, Ariadna Tovar, told Semana, “The strategy of renouncing magistrates who rule in favor of recognizing and guaranteeing rights, especially of traditionally discriminated against groups, like LGBTI and women, is one of the most used strategies of anti-rights groups.”
According to El Universal, Senator Armando Benetti, of President Juan Manuel Santos’ Party of the U, rejected the court’s decision, saying that it violated the homosexual’s couples’ Constitutionally protected right to raise a family.
“This will not be the first or the last court decision against couples of the same sex,” said Benetti. “For this reason I have maintained that the road to secure the fundamental rights for homosexual couples is a revision of all the constitutional orders that have been brought before the Constitutional Court.”
Sources
- Anulan primer matrimonio gay en Colombia (Semana)
- Anulan matrimonio entre pareja homosexual (El Universal)