Another Insider Report On Argentina Marriage Vote

More reporting from MadProfessah's Buenos Aires correspondent. They wrote this email to me today:

The debate was impressive (and broadcast live on 4 different TV channels). My favorite speaker was Daniel Filmus, a senator representing the Federal Capital (Buenos Aires is like D.C., except it has full representation in the house and
senate). Filmus is a sociologist and was a university administrator before making the leap to national politics.

Among his comments Filmus said (I paraphrase): "Some opponents observe
that only 7 other countries have approved gay marriage, so why should
Argentina? I ask how many other countries have to approve it before
Argentina does? It is to our shame that Argentina did not approve
women's sufferage until 1950, and it is a point of pride that Argentina
was the 3rd country in the world and the 1st in Latin America to put on
trial the military leaders who participated in a repressive
dictatorship. We should aim to lead, not just to follow, in the
progress toward justice, freedom, and equality. Opponents to gay
marriage also claim that gay marriage is unnatural because gay sex is
not procreative and because throughout time in all societies, families
have consisted of a mother, a father, and their children. That is not
true. There have been many different kinship systems. The nuclear
family centered on a monogamous procreative couple that the opponents
claim is natural is in fact a relatively recent invention. Also, in
addition to adoption, there are new reproductive technologies that
straight as well as gay couples use to produce children. Rather than
prohibit gay couples from marrying, we should next turn our attention to
changing our adoption and family laws to encompass these new
technologies for straight, gay, and single parents. Finally, the
opponents claim that children have a right to be raised by a mother and
a father. I'll now read from a letter signed by 500 of my colleagues at
the (Argentine) National Science Foundation. The letter observes that
every study conducted anywhere in the world over the past 40 years have
found that children raised by gay parents are not different from
children raised by heterosexual parents, except that children of gay
parents tend to be a little more tolerant and less violent." He said a
lot more, but those are some of my favorite of his comments.

Another high point of the debate came at the very end in an exchange
between Liliana Negre de Alonso, the leader of the pro-Church
opposition, and Miguel Angel Pichetto, the leader of the pro-Pres.
Kirchner voting block. Negre de Alonso pleaded for her civil union bill
to be passed instead because that would avoid tearing the country apart
by providing a middle ground. Pichetto accused Negre de Alonso of being
deceitful. He observed that she never showed any interest in civil
unions for gay people until it became clear that gay marriage would be
approved. Then she slapped together a thoroughly offensive bill that
would provide a second-class alternative to marriage for gays, lesbians,
and transsexuals. Worst, the civil union bill included a clause that
would give a judge the option not to perform a civil union because of
the judge's conscientious objections to gay unions. Pichetto said that
clause, licensing judges to discriminate against a minority group,
"belongs more to Nazi Germany than to a democratic state." Negre de
Alonso responded, offended, that "here we are talking about freedom and
equality, and [Pichetto] is discriminating against me" because he only
accepts people who think the way he thinks. Pichetto observed that
disagreeing with her was not discriminating against her, and that the
opponents are the ones who do not accept people who think differently
from themselves. He observed that those in favor of gay marriage do not
discriminate against heterosexual couples, but those who are opposed to
gay marriage to discriminate against gay couples.

At the end, it was clear that the vote would be 32-32, which would leave
it to the acting president of the senate to break the tie, in favor of
gay marriage. At that point, some senators changed their votes, leading
to a final vote of 33-27 with 3 abstentions and 1 non-vote, so the
acting president did not have to weigh in. Speaking of the acting
president, I was wrong about why Vice President Cobos could not fulfill
his usual role of president of the senate (and tie-breaking vote). It
is not because Cobos is in China with President Fernández de Kirchner.
It is because Cobos is acting president of the nation while President
Fernández de Kirchner is abroad. Thus, by scheduling the vote while the
President was abroad, the President was able to ensure that her V.P.
could not be prez of the senate and vote against her, the way he did a
couple of years ago on an important farm bill.

An amazing, exciting historic time to be living in Argentina!