The Crusade against Same-Sex Marriage in Colombia

Abstract

In 2011 the Colombian Constitutional Court laid the groundwork for gay marriage, ruling it unconstitutional to exclude same-sex couples from the benefits of legal marriage. Instead of extending marriage to same-sex couples, however, the Court’s decision left it to Congress to pass a law regulating such unions. Sharply divided on the issue, Congress failed to act. The then-Inspector General, a conservative Catholic, launched a wide-ranging legal and moral attack on marriage rights for same-sex couples, an attack which lasted until the Constitutional Court in 2016 expressly authorized these weddings. The attack included not only briefs and legal actions but also disciplinary action against public officials that celebrated same-sex weddings. This article seeks to unpack both the subtle and overt ways in which religious homophobia reflects and is reflected in popular culture and argues for a complex understanding of the relationship between homophobia in popular culture, religious definition of homosexuality as sinful, and the recourse to Constitutional Law by advocates for and against same-sex marriage.