Equality
Gay Couples in Colombia Granted Health Benefits
By Bryan Ochalla

Oct 9, 2007

Colombia’s highest court ruled late last week that the country’s same-sex couples deserve the same social security rights as their straight counterparts.

The law is the first of its kind in Latin America to allow gays and lesbians to include same-sex partners in their health insurance plans.

Colombia’s Congress passed legislation offering the same benefits earlier this year, but conservative lawmakers eventually got it thrown out.

Included in the defeated measure was a provision to extend common law pension benefits to gay couples. The country’s Constitutional Court has yet to rule on that issue, though it granted same-sex couples inheritance rights in a separate decision in February.

Civil rights activist Virgilio Barco told Reuters recently that "it looks like the only way for us to enact this last provision will be through another appeal to the Constitutional Court.”