An Insider's Report From Argentina on Marriage Equality Debate

A friend of mine who lives in both Argentina and the United States but who is in Buenos Aires right now sent this extensive analysis of what is going on in the country as the Senate prepares to consider marriage equality legislation:

The final debate on the same-sex marriage bill will start at 12:30 today

(8:30 am LA time), with a vote coming in the early evening.

The Argentine Senate has 72 members but 4 will be absent: 2 are in

China with the president, 1 is sick, and 1 is on leave. It's

interesting that the 2 who are with the president are both opposed to

gay marriage, while the president and her husband are the leading

proponents of gay marriage. So the president may have invited the 2

anti senators to accompany her to keep them away from the vote, or the

pro senators decided to take advantage of the 2 anti senators' absence

by calling for the vote before the party returns from China. Also, the

tie-breaking vote belongs to the VP, who is also in China with the

president, and the VP is against whatever the president is for. That

acting president of the senate is pro gay marriage. In sum, by holding

the vote while the president's party is in China, pro forces managed to

reduce the number of votes needed for passage from 37 (to avoid a tie

that would be broken in the other direction) to 34 (to achieve a tie

that would be broken in favor of gay marriage).

The pro forces claim they have 35 votes lined up, but independent

journalists count 33 in favor and 33 opposed to gay marriage, with 2

undecided or undeclared. So the pro forces need just 1 of those 2, plus

the tie-breaking vote of the acting president of the senate.

Before the vote, there will be a proposal to change the language in the

bill from "marriage" to "egalitarian family union". It's their attempt

to have it both ways. They don't want to use the word "marriage" for

fear of offending the anti forces, but they call that the "family union"

they propose "egalitarian" in order to assure the pro forces that it is

not a second-class form of marriage, and to avoid having the president

of the senate rule the proposed "invalid". That's what he did yesterday

when he ruled that the senate would not vote on the civil union bill

because it was invalid on constitutional grounds.

Another parliamentary move by the anti forces will be to try to persuade

32 senators to walk out in order to deny the pro forces the quorum

needed to have a vote. Also, the anti forces have announced that if the

same-sex marriage is defeated, they will immediately reintroduce the

civil union bill. They argue that once gay marriage is off the table,

the acting president of the senate will allow a vote to go forward on

civil unions. In sum, the opposition forces calculate that some

senators will vote against same-sex marriage if they are they have the

option of voting for same-sex civil unions or "egalitarian family

unions". And the pro forces calculate that the same senators will vote

for same-sex marriage if they do not have a weasel-ish alternative.

You can watch the live feed of the Argentine Senate debate here and here.