After a nearly four-year legal battle, Fabiana Banzer and Scarlett Rocha on Friday became the first same-sex couple in Bolivia to enter into a civil marriage. Despite the recognition of their wedding, the constitution of the 12.5 million inhabitants of the South American country still bans same-sex marriages. Still, their legal victory could open the door for other same-sex couples to have their partnerships recognized.
The couple applied on October 12, 2022, for a civil marriage with legal support from the queer organization IGUAL Bolivia. The organization noted that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), which covers 20 countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America, guaranteed a right to same-sex marriages in January 2018 (TheColu.mn reported). The ruling stated that states signatory to the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights should grant same-sex couples “access to all existing national systems of family registration, including marriage, as well as to all rights arising from marriage.”
Article 63 of the Bolivian Constitution, however, confines marriage to heterosexual couples. The subsequent lengthy legal battle by Banzer and Rocha led the courts to grant two constitutional complaints.
Other couples must fight for the right to marry in court
The couple ultimately won their case, but the victory so far applies only to the two women. There have been no nationwide laws or constitutional amendments permitting same-sex marriages countrywide. Yet the success could pave the way for similar lawsuits and accelerate the path toward marriage equality for all.
“Scar and I have been together for more than four years,” Banzer wrote this weekend in a public Facebook post. “It makes me very happy to tell our family and friends that after a legal battle of three years and 10 months as two women we have finally gained access to civil marriage.”
Facebook / fau.Volturi
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Banzer and Rocha are only Bolivia’s second legally recognized same-sex couple. In December 2020, David Aruquipa and Guido Montaño won their legal case and became the first same-sex couple to have their partnership registered as a civil union (TheColu.mn reported).
“Rights don’t spring up overnight”
Aruquipa said on Sunday that he sees the recent civil marriage of the two women as a meaningful milestone on the longer journey toward marriage equality for Bolivia. “Rather than speaking of a beginning, we should speak of historical continuity: from the first recognized civil partnership to the first civil marriage,” he wrote on Facebook. “Rights don’t arise overnight.”
Facebook / davidctor
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Although Bolivia has not criminalized consensual same-sex acts since 1832 and also has anti-discrimination laws to protect queer people, same-sex couples are not legally allowed to adopt children. Additionally, access to in vitro fertilization for lesbian couples is not guaranteed, and so-called conversion therapies aimed at “curing” homosexuality remain legal in the country. The backdrop is that both the Catholic Church and rapidly growing evangelical churches hold tremendous political influence and categorically oppose equal treatment of LGBTQ people on religious grounds. (dk)
