MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, SEPT. 11, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Uruguay became the first Latin American country to allow homosexual couples to adopt children, thereby forcing the Christian Family Movement to plan a halt to its adoption services.
In a vote Wednesday, the Senate ratified last month’s Chamber of Deputies approval of the measure. President Tabaré Vázquez’s administration will now decide when the law takes effect.
The new law shifts decision-making in adoption proceedings to the national Institute of Children and Adolescents.
Archbishop Nicolas Cotugno of Montevideo, president of the Uruguayan episcopal conference’s Commission for the Family, had given voice to the Church’s disapproval of the measure and concern for children’s rights.
«Children cannot be used as an instrument to assert the rights of some people or a group,» he wrote, «nor is adoption an institution that can be governed by criteria of political convenience.»
The archbishop lamented that with the measure, «children are truly discriminated against, causing them serious harm.»
The communiqué clarified that «this issue does not regard homosexuals as persons, who, as such, merit the greatest respect.»
