Colombia refuses to equalise adoption laws for same-sex couples
Colombia’s Constitutional Court has ruled to keep the current limits on same-sex adoption.
The court said yesterday that same-sex couples could only adopt a child if it was the offspring of one of the partners.
Campaigners have reacted with dismay at the ruling. Senator Armando Benedetti, a supporter of LGBT rights, called the judges “cowards”.
Days before the ruling was issued, Sebastián Villalobos, the second-most watched YouTube personality in Colombia, urged for the judges to equalise the country’s adoption laws.
The 19-year-old has two mothers and spoke movingly about being raised by same-sex parents.
“I am Sebastián Villalobos, I’m not gay, I don’t have any trauma, I don’t have any psychological problems and no one in my family has psychological or emotional issues,” Villalobos said.
“This video is very important to me,” Villalobos told his 2.8 million followers on Facebook, reports Fusion.
“If [the Colombian judge] says yes to same-sex adoptions we’ll be able to tell the world, yes, we have excellent athletes, yes we have the world’s most beautiful woman and now we’re also a smarter country that accepts the diversity of all its inhabitants,” Villalobos said.
A bill to legalise same-sex marriage was voted down in Colombia’s Senate in 2013.
