BELGIUM
Same-sex marriage win
Belgium is now the second country in Europe to legalize
same-sex marriage. The noteworthy Belgian legislation was
passed into law on Jan. 30 and will take effect in four
months.
Same-sex couples will finally be afforded many of the rights
of heterosexual couples, including inheritance rights.
Not having these basic civil rights creates a nightmare for
same-sex couples in the United States, whose relationships
enjoy no such legal protections in this supposed bastion of
capitalist democracy.
However, the Belgian law shied away from legal recognition
of a very fundamental right: the right to adopt children.
So the struggle continues--there, and here.
--Leslie Feinberg
Reprinted from the Feb. 13, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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