Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Via The independent / Chile legalises gay marriage and allows LGBT couples to adopt as historic new bill signed

Chile legalises gay marriage and allows LGBT couples to adopt as historic new bill signed

'We can’t let old prejudices be stronger than love,' President Michelle Bachelet says


Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has introduced a bill to legalise gay marriage, the latest in a series of recent reforms in a country long regarded as one of Latin America’s most socially conservative.

Bachelet signed the proposal, which will be sent to lawmakers, at a ceremony in the presidential palace. She said the measure seeks to expand the definition of marriage between a man and a woman and would also expand rights for gay couples, allowing them to adopt children.

“We can’t let old prejudices be stronger than love,” Bachelet said.



Chile approved civil unions for same-sex couples in 2015 and decriminalised gay sex in 1999. The bill comes a week after Chile’s Constitutional Court upheld a measure that would end the country’s absolute ban on abortions.

Civil unions have been recognised in several South American countries, though only Argentina and Uruguay have codified same-sex marriage. Gay marriage has also been legalised in Brazil and Colombia under court rulings.

It’s unlikely Bachelet will be able to push the measure through Congress before she ends her term in March 2018. But gay right advocates celebrated the decision as an important step toward full rights.
“It’s the beginning of the end of discrimination based on sexual orientation to access marriage,” said Luis Larrain, founder of the Iguales Foundation.

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Via Daily Dharma: Work from Where You Are

In human life, if you feel that you have made a mistake, you don’t try to undo the past or the present, but you just accept where you are and work from there.

—Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, “Your Life Is Your Practice

Ram Dass Interview with Bhakti Fest 2017


Via Ram Dass

Worry and fear are not tickets on the express train. They are extra baggage. You were going that way anyway.

- Ram Dass -