The South American nation of Chile is celebrating the instalment of new same-sex union laws that provide them with many of the rights given to opposite-sex married couples.
As many as 1,600 couples have signed up to obtain a civil union, taking advantage of the new laws which gained cross-party support in chile’s Parliament.
According to recent polls, the majority of Chilean people are in favour of civil unions, however only a quarter of people in Chile support same-sex marriage.
Many hope that the Chilean people will get used to the idea of committed same-sex couples in legal unions, and eventually join Argentina and Uruguay in allowing same-sex couples to get married.
Government spokesman Marcelo Diaz believes that the law would have been “unthinkable a few years ago.”
In Chile, which is one of the most Catholic countries in South America, Abortion is still banned, and divorce was only recently legalised in 2004.
Last Updated on Oct 23, 2015
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