In Colombia the Constitutional Court pronounced a sentence designed to cause a real turn in society: homosexual couples share the same proprietary rights of hetero. It is enough to have two years of cohabitation and then it's done.
A decision, in a Catholic country like Colombia, that induced a severe reaction in the Church, through the words of the Colombian Episcopal Conference President, Monsignor  Luis Castro Quiroga: “I am very surprised”, he commented, because according to the prelate this issue should have been discussed democratically in the Parliament, where it is possible to listen to different views and therefore find mediations and reach compromises.

Overwhelming majority. Therefore with eight positive votes and one against the Court has literally crossed off the words “man” and “woman” from two articles of a 1990 law acknowledging unmarried couples.
The Court intervened in the matter after a recourse presented by the NGO Colombia Diversa invited by the Law Faculty of the Andean University, which believed those articles to be unconstitutional. So far, in fact, in the event of death of one of the two homosexual cohabitants the assets were inherited by the family of origin, so that many couples devised the guile to set up commercial societies to control the problem.

The reactions. Satisfaction for the Marcheka Sanchez, responsible of Colombia Diversa, who defined the resolution “a big leap forward in favour of the unmarried gay couples, despite it arrives with seventeen years late with respect to the heterosexual couples”.
It is apparent that this sentence is not equivalent to acknowledge same-sex marriage, but the road is now downhill. And the Church is becoming so aware of that, that the CEC president, Fabian Marulanda Lopez, repeatedly clarified that “a sentence concerning property and social security of these couples is understandable”, as long as these choices “are not pursued through a kind of disguised marriage”. According to the bishop, the really worrying issue in this situation is represented by the deep motives: “It seems that the aim is a new form of marriage that does not make any sense. This is unacceptable, because on the long run it strikes the family, that is the basic cell in society”.
Fabian Marulanda Lopez restated that homosexuals “must enjoy the same rights as any other citizen in this country”, but he hopes “in the sensibleness of magistrates” so that these measures do not go against the natural marriage, founded on the union between man and woman. “I hope – the CEC secretary clarified – that the family rights will continue to be respected and that this law will not lead homosexual couples to claim a right for under-age adoptions”.

Also beyond the ocean. The full acknowledgement of the homosexual family has been for long a matter of heated political debate. The Parliament is examining a bill that, besides property rights for gay couples, establishes that their members can enjoy social security. The bill has been approved by the Senate and is being discussed by the Chamber where, according to a survey by the newspaper “El Tiempo”, it should not meet obstacles.

But the first step forward in the acknowledgement of minorities rights by the Colombian society happened last December, when for the first time in the history of Colombia the transsexual William Navarro, or, better, Diana Navarro, has been elected member of the National Directorate of the Alternative Democratic Centre, one of the most important left-wing parties in Colombia.
Who knows, maybe machismo and homophobia are making for the sunset, despite the handbrake the Catholic Church is trying to pull also beyond the ocean.