Portugal Parliament passes gay marriage legislation, opts not to legalize gay adoption

[tko_ak]

As a follow up of sorts to a recent discussion about gay marriage vs. gay adoption, I thought this article about Portugal was interesting.

Gay marriage isn't legal yet, but it's on its way. I did think it was interesting that while they supported marriage equality, gay adoption was rejected.

Comments

[worldmage]

It sounds like a compromise with right-wingers to me. Typical political wheel-and-deal stuff.

[tko_ak]

The "right-wingers" aren't going to compromise. They aren't going to support gay marriage if gay adoption isn't legalized. Besides, it's a parliamentarian system of government, led by Socialists.

[worldmage]

Are you certain that they won't? Just because Republicans wouldn't doesn't mean the conservative party in Portugal wouldn't. Political divisions in Europe are very different from those in America. It's not out of the realm of possibility that there is diverse support for gay marriage but not adoption. Since this is a parliamentarian system, as you say, there are third and probably fourth parties to consider as well, such as the center-right Social Democrats mentioned in the article. There may have been the possibility of the conservatives joining forces with the Social Democrats if they included gay adoption in the bill. Just because the Socialists are in power that doesn't mean they have carte blanche to pass whatever legislation they want.

IME, when you see these sorts of mixed messages it's the result of some backroom deal, like we saw with regard to the Stupak amendment on the health care reform bill.

[redstar826]

Just looking over stuff in Wikipedia, while the Socialists are the largest group in the Parliament the Social Democratic Party, which Wikipedia says is actually a center-right party, is not that far behind them in terms of number of seats. The President of Portugal, who has the power to veto legislation, is a Social Democrat.

[emh4ever]

Protect teh childrenz!!!111