Clock is ticking on Chilean president's push for same-sex civil unions.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
President Sebastian Pinera has proven to be an unlikely ally for Chile's LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, most notably by overseeing passage last year of the Ley Zamudio, an equal-rights law that had been promised--but never delivered--by his more leftist predecessors. The conservative leader could cement his legacy as a gay-rights pioneer by making good on a campaign pledge to legalize same-sex civil unions. With just a year remaining in his term, however, time is running out.
Four years ago, in the run-up to the 2009 presidential election, Pinera caused something of a stir with a campaign ad featuring two men holding hands (NotiSur, May 7, 2010). Standing next to the couple--and speaking on their behalf--the rightist candidate told would-be voters, "Today, people accept us. Now we need a country that respects us."
The television spot set tongues wagging not because Pinera, a billionaire businessman and former senator for the center-right Renovacion Nacional (RN), was the first or only candidate to target the gay vote. He was neither. Independent candidate Marco Enrfquez-Ominami pushed the envelope much further by supporting gay marriage, which Pinera continues to oppose. The other contender, former President Eduardo Frei (1996-2000) of the centrist Partido Democrata Cristiano (DC), ran an earlier campaign ad in which two lesbians kiss.
What many Chileans found remarkable was that Pinera would run such a spot at all given the deeply conservative social attitudes to which many of his political allies in the governing Alianza coalition cling. Also known as the Coalicion por el Cambio, the Alianza ties together the RN and hard-right Union Democrata Independiente (UDI). RN party president Sen. Carlos Larrafn is an unapologetic homophobe who, during a 2010 television appearance, infamously equated homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality. More recently, a UDI deputy said Chile risks invasion by Bolivia or Peru if it allows homosexuals into the military.
Gay-rights groups celebrated the progressive 2009 campaigns ads, Pinera's included, as an important advance. But they also treated the conservative candidate's sudden interest in gay voters--and his promise to push both an equal-rights bill and civil-union legislation--with a healthy dose of skepticism. Pinera's more leftist predecessors, after all, had also made overtures to the gay community. "But in practice nothing ever materialized," Rolando Jimenez of the...
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