BELGIUM LEGALIZES GAY MARRIAGE
Belgium's House of Representatives voted 91-22 (with 9 abstentions) Jan. 30 to legalize full marriage for same-sex couples.
However, it withheld adoption rights.
The Senate already had approved the measure, which will come into force in June. It modifies the civil code by inserting a clause stating that 'two people of different or the same sex can contract a marriage.'
'Mentalities have changed,' said Justice Minister Marc Verwilghen. 'There is no longer any reason not to open marriage to people of the same sex.'
Foreigners are allowed to marry in Belgium only when the marriage also would be permitted in their home country.
The only nation with no distinctions between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage is The Netherlands. Foreigners can marry there after a brief period of residency.
Numerous nations have registered-partnership, civil-union or other laws that give gay couples up to 99 percent of the rights and obligations of marriage. Those countries include Canada (Quebec's law is the most comprehensive), Denmark (and Greenland), Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and, in the United States, the state of Vermont. In addition, gay couples have certain spousal rights in Australia, Austria, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, and in four other U.S. states.
COURT TO DECIDE DUAL MOMS CASE
South Africa's Constitutional Court will decide Feb. 27 if a lesbian couple who are the biological mothers of a set of twins will both be legally recognized as the twins' parents.
One of the women was implanted with the other woman's eggs after they were fertilized by sperm from an anonymous donor.
The Department of Home Affairs refused to register both women as parents. The women sued and the Durban High Court ruled in their favor. Now the Constitutional Court must confirm that the High Court ruling is not unconstitutional.
The women were not named in press reports.