Brazil -- which has more Catholics than any other country in the world -- has given a de facto green light to same-sex marriage, the Catholic News website reports today (May 15, 2013).
In a bold stride for the nation with 123 million Roman Catholics, the National Council of Justice -- a panel which oversees Brazil's legal system and is headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court -- said government offices that issue marriage licenses had no standing to reject gay couples.
"This is equivalent of authorizing same-sex marriage in Brazil," said Raquel Pereira de Castro Araujo, head of the human rights committee of the Brazilian bar association. Brazil joins Argentina and Uruguay as the only other Latin American nations to legalize same-sex marriage.
Brazil's Supreme Court Chief Justice Joaquim Barbosa explained that there was no reason for government marriage licensing offices to wait for Congress to pass a law on same-sex marriage before extending gays the rights they legally already have. Barbosa noted that the Supreme Court in 2011 recognized stable homosexual unions, ruling that the constitution guaranteed them the same rights as heterosexual couples.
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