Same sex marriage is still not legal in Costa Rica; a referendum is about to decide whether a new law will pass permitted the gay community to get married. This decision involves various gay groups, the Catholic Church, The Supreme Court and civil lawyers. Why a Referendum to decide upon the fate of such a delicate issue like same sex civil union is questionable, when Costa Rica is so proud of being a democratic Country? The new President of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, is strongly opposed to same sex marriage and abortion rights, where is this democracy?

The new president was elected, like many before her, by giving a bag log of promises that will never concretizes. Now the gay community is about to be the first one to pay.

This referendum is relying on a majority of heterosexuals to make this crucial decision. The results are quite predictable; the majority will put their points of view together with their prejudices forward. Democracy meanwhile is supposed to respect the opinions of all of us. This referendum is for sure nothing but a farce and everything and anything but democratic.

This has been going on since May 2006 when the supreme court of Costa Rica ruled against same sex couples civil unions. In 2008 a group opposed to same sex Union requested that the Supreme Court organize a referendum. The Supreme Court authorized the group to collect signatures that are required by law in order to authorize the referendum; at least 5% of registered voters, that is 200 000, have to give their signatures. While the Catholic Church approves of this referendum, the gay groups of this country oppose it as hard as they can.

With so much corruption when one is dealing either with the government or the Catholic church, one wonder why they even bother with the referendum…The outcome nevertheless remains interesting, for the sole purpose of being another proof of this corruption, and showing us another meaning of the word Democracy!

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Filed under: Living on June 25th, 2010