Commission votes on bill prohibiting equating same-sex unions with marriage

PL 580/2007, which deals with same-sex unions, is expected to be voted on by the Commission for Social Security, Social Assistance, Childhood, Adolescence and Family of the Chamber of Deputies, this Tuesday (5). The opinion of Deputy Pastor Eurico (PL-PE), rapporteur for the project, is contrary to the equation of same-sex union with marriage and family entity.

PL 580/2007 has eight other propositions attached – a strategy used to speed up and facilitate the discussion of projects with the same subject -, among them PL 5167/2009. Pastor Eurico’s report rejects all proposals favorable to homosexual couples and only approves PL 5167/2009, which adds to the Civil Code that no same-sex relationship can be equated with marriage.

Today, for homosexual couples, both civil marriage and the conversion of a stable union into marriage through the registry office are possible. As the rapporteur’s vote points out, the Federal Constitution recognizes the stable union as a family entity only between man and woman. The deputy reinforced the idea that “any change on the subject must be submitted to the legislative will, the only one responsible for editing and modifying laws”.

In the report, Eurico comments on the decision of the plenary of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), in 2011, which equated relations between people of the same sex with stable unions between men and women and recognized same-sex unions as a family nucleus, through the ADI 4277. For the parliamentarian, the STF exercised a function that would belong to the National Congress and the decision of the Judiciary “was based on ideological purposes” and distorted “the will of the Brazilian people, which only manifests itself through its regularly elected representatives”.

The proposal is in the Committee on Welfare, Social Assistance, Childhood, Adolescence and Family and should go through two more committees in the Chamber. If approved, the text will go to the Federal Senate.