Argentina adopts gay marriage

In 1997, at a meeting of the International Psychoanalytic Association in Barcelona, I was invited to be one of the speakers on a panel on homosexuality. During my discussion, I identified myself as a gay psychoanalyst. The other two panelists considered homosexuality to be a disorder, as did many in the audience.

After the meeting, a young man nervously sought me out and asked if he could talk with me -- but not there, because he didn't want anyone from his home country to see him with me. We found a quiet place to sit down, away from the crowd, and he told me that he was a psychologist and very much wanted to become a psychoanalyst; but he could not apply to the institute in his country, because homosexuality was considered a pathology, and in addition to being rejected he would then be stigmatized by those he had revealed this to. He was hoping he could get the training he needed by commuting to the U.S. A few years later, a gay-friendly straight psychoanalyst from that same country told me how discouraged he was about the continued opposition and slow pace of change.

That country? Argentina.

Thirteen years later -- last night -- the Argentine senate voted 33 to 27, with 3 abstentions, to legalize same-sex marriage. The House of Delegates had already passed it, and the president has been a strong supporter. So Argentina now joins 9 other countries where gays can get married (Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Portugal), as well as other countries that grant all or most of the rights in a civil union. Added to those countries are state and city laws in other countries. Mexico City led the way in Latin American, although Argentina is the first country as a whole. In the U.S., five states (MA, CT, IA, VT, NH) and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, while CA has it's on-again, off-again ambivalence about it. (A legal challenge to Prop8 is working its way up to the Supreme Court).

On the other hand, there are still countries -- mostly in Africa and the Islamic world -- where punitive measures, including the death penalty, still exist. It's only in looking back and seeing where we have come from that we can realize how much has changed and, in the grand sweep of history, how rapid the progress has been.

Argentina's vote last night reminded me of that brief meeting with the young psychologist from Buenos Aires. I've often wondered what happened to him.

Ralph