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» babble   » current events   » international news and politics   » Lesbian judge fights Chilean court for taking her children

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Author Topic: Lesbian judge fights Chilean court for taking her children
Michelle
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posted 20 July 2006 11:31 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I find this interesting because - well, I guess it's just a blatant prejudice on my part, but I think of South American countries with very strict socially conservative laws to also have those attitudes reflected by the majority of the population due to the influence of the Catholic Church on the society and culture. And yet, according to the article, every poll that has come out has shown that half the people polled think this Lesbian mother should not have had her kids taken away from her.

I wonder how a poll like that would have fared in the US? Or even Canada.

quote:
SANTIAGO, Chile, July 17 — As a young judge, inspired by the democratic glow that followed the ouster of Gen. Augusto Pinochet and his dictatorship in 1990, Karen Atala had an unwavering faith in justice and the rule of law. But that was all before Chile’s Supreme Court stripped her of custody of her three daughters two years ago because she had publicly identified herself as a lesbian.

Karen Atala, 42, a Chilean judge, is fighting to regain her three children. Chile’s top court stripped her of custody two years ago.
Now Judge Atala, 42, has become a symbol of what she and gay rights groups that have emerged here in recent years, at first tentatively but now with growing assertiveness, describe as a different kind of human rights violation.

Rather than accept the ruling and the beliefs underlying it, she is fighting to have the decision overturned and for the rights of homosexuals to be recognized in what is often described as Latin America’s most socially conservative country.

The Atala case, as it is known here, has thrust homosexuality, considered a marginal issue just a few years ago, onto the national political agenda. During last year’s presidential campaign, candidates were asked how they would have ruled if they had been judges, and newspapers regularly publish polls on the case. They show the country nearly evenly divided between those who support and those who disagree with the ruling.

“What happened to Karen Atala has opened the doors to a debate,” said Anatolia Hernández, president of the Unified Movement of Sexual Minorities, an advocacy group. “Homosexuals are still being killed, and you can go to jail for kissing in the street, but at least we are no longer invisible.”


Interesting.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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