Two Million Colombians Sign Petition to Ban Same-Sex Adoption

Steve Weatherbe : Apr 5, 2016
LifeSiteNews.com

The campaign hammered at two points: adoption was an institution to protect children, not a right of parents; and the courts had usurped Congress' role by reinterpreting a clear declaration in the constitution that marriage was for men and women to allow same-sex couples to adopt.

(Bogota, Colombia)—A crusading Colombian senator has garnered 2 million signatures as the first step in getting a referendum to stop same-sex adoption in the equatorial republic of 48 million people. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

In November 2015, within a week after the country's constitutional court decision to allow same-sex adoption, Senator Viviane Morales had rounded up 33 members of Congress for her campaign to overthrow that ruling.
 
The country's complex mechanisms for direct democratic action required her to gather 1.8 million signatures in four months. The "Sign for Mom and Dad" campaign, supported by both the Catholic and evangelical Protestant churches (Morales belongs to the latter), produced 2 million.
 
The campaign hammered at two points: adoption was an institution to protect children, not a right of parents; and the courts had usurped Congress' role by reinterpreting a clear declaration in the constitution that marriage was for men and women to allow same-sex couples to adopt. Prior to 2015 only the gay partners of biological parents could adopt.

In a formal statement the campaigners argued, "Since the Supreme Court has [gone] beyond its role of guarding the Constitution, it is essential to go to the primary constituent through a referendum, to express the importance of such a vital affair as the rights of boys, girls and adolescents to have...
 
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