By John Mack Freeman
In El Salvador this week, a constitutional referendum that would ban same sex marriage got preliminary approval from the legislature with 47 of 84 members backing the proposal. According to El Salvadoran law, the bill must receive 2/3 approval, or 56 of the current members.
In Malawi, the Marriage, Divorce, and Family Relations Law went into effect. Among the laws other provisions, it provides a much stricter definition of marriage and co-habitating relationships as being between a man and a woman. Further, it said that for the sake of marriage, sex was defined as the sex a person was assigned at birth. Via PinkNews:
The law states: “Such a determination of sex at birth avoids any potential problems caused by transsexuals or persons who have undergone sex-changing surgery later in life from marrying a person, prior to that sex-changing surgery was of the same sex as them.”
The law also mentions gay sex as being comparable to rape and sexual harassment.
While human rights groups have praised provisions in the bill that change the minimum age for marriage to 18, which is intended to help prevent child marriage, they have condemned the harsh restrictions for LGBT people.
Egypt enacted a new law this week that allowed them to deport gay foreigners and to deny visas to gay people based on their sexual orientation. Although the country has no specific anti-gay laws, arrests of gay men have been rising, with those arrested being typically accused of “debauchery.”
In better news, Chilean president Michelle Bachelet signed a law this week allowing civil unions to go forward in Chile.
