Same-sex marriage in Chile
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Chile since 10 March 2022. The path to legalization began in June 2021 when President Sebastián Piñera announced his administration's intention to sponsor a bill for this cause. The Chilean Senate passed the legislation on 21 July 2021, followed by the Chamber of Deputies on 23 November 2021. Due to disagreements between the two chambers of the National Congress on certain aspects of the bill, a mixed commission was formed to resolve these issues. A unified version of the bill was approved on 7 December 2021. President Piñera signed it into law on 9 December, and it was published in the country's official gazette on 10 December. The law took effect 90 days later, and the first same-sex marriages occurred on 10 March 2022. Chile was the sixth country in South America, the seventh in Latin America and the 29th in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.
Before this, Chile recognized same-sex couples through civil unions, known in Spanish as acuerdo de unión civil, which were available to all couples regardless of sexual orientation and provided some, but not all, of the rights of marriage. The first civil unions were registered on 22 October 2015.
Civil unions
Bachelet's first presidency
In the January 2006 presidential campaign, both major candidates, center-left Michelle Bachelet and center-right Sebastián Piñera, voiced their support for civil unions, but the Catholic Church and many members of the National Congress were opposed. A civil union bill was introduced to the National Congress in October 2009, but it failed to pass.Piñera's first presidency
During his run-up to the presidency in 2009, Piñera vowed to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and included a same-sex couple in one of his televised campaign ads. In June 2010, Senator Andrés Allamand from the National Renewal party submitted a bill to Congress to permit a "Common Life Agreement", which would have been open to both different-sex and same-sex couples. On 3 August 2010, Senator Fulvio Rossi from the Socialist Party introduced a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. During the first week of September 2010, several senators backing the marriage bill said they would withdraw their support after talks with members of the Evangelical Church, and instead announced support for the civil union bill introduced by Allamand.In May 2011, President Piñera said he was in favor of an upcoming bill to legalize a form of civil union; his stated intent was to "protect and safeguard the dignity of those couples, whether of the opposite or even the same sex". Piñera introduced a bill to Congress in August 2011 allowing registered cohabitation, known as Acuerdo de Vida en Pareja. This would have given unmarried partners many of the rights granted to married couples, such as inheritance and certain social welfare and health care benefits. Under Piñera's legislation, same-sex couples would have been able to register their civil partnerships with a notary. On 10 April 2013, the civil union bill was approved by the Senate's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on a 4–1 vote. On 7 January 2014, the Senate voted 28–6 in favor, but the bill was not voted on by the Chamber of Deputies before the end of the parliamentary session in March 2014, despite it being a priority issue for Piñera.
Bachelet's second presidency
When Michelle Bachelet again took office as president in March 2014, she made passing Piñera's civil union bill a priority. A Senate committee approved the bill on 5 August, and it passed the Senate on 7 October. The name of the bill was changed to "Civil Union Pact" on 17 December, and Congress reiterated its intention to hold a final vote by January 2015. On 6 January, a provision recognizing foreign marriages as civil unions was approved by the Constitution Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, while a clause recognizing adoption rights was rejected. As the bill was amended, it went to a final vote in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. On 13 January, the Chamber of Deputies reinserted the adoption provision, and on 20 January it approved the bill on a vote of 86 to 23 with 2 abstentions. The Senate rejected all the Chamber's amendments on 27 January, so the bill was sent to a joint committee of both houses. The committee reached an agreement with regard to the text of the bill and changed the name to "Civil Union Agreement" the same day. The bill was passed in both houses on 28 January. Several lawmakers asked the Constitutional Court to verify the bill's constitutionality, which was upheld by the court in a ruling released on 6 April 2015. The bill was signed into law by President Bachelet on 13 April. It was published in the Diario Oficial de la República de Chile on 21 April and took effect on 22 October 2015.Chile's civil union provisions enable couples to claim pension benefits, inherit property and make medical decisions for partners, but exclude adoption rights. All disputes and conflicts involving civil partners are dealt with by the family courts. The government estimated at the time of the law going into effect that some two million cohabiting couples could have their unions legally recognized. Approximately 1,600 couples had signed up to register their unions by the first day. The first same-sex civil union on Easter Island was performed in November 2015. On 1 December 2016, the Chamber of Deputies unanimously passed a bill granting civil partners five days' marriage leave, similarly to newly married couples. The bill was approved by the Senate in October 2017 in a unanimous 15–0 vote. The law took effect on 8 November 2017.
Statistics
31,098 couples entered into civil unions between 2015 and 2019, of which 21% were same-sex couples. This proportion was higher between October and December 2015 when 28.7% of civil unions were to same-sex couples. However, in the following months, this number declined and stabilized to around 20%.Between 2016 and 2019, 248,567 marriages and 22,951 civil unions were performed in Chile, of which 5,950 were to same-sex couples. Most civil unions were performed in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, followed by the Valparaíso Region. Considering population, the region with the largest number of civil unions was Antofagasta, while the lowest was Araucanía. The Santiago Metropolitan Region also had the largest share of same-sex civil unions compared to opposite-sex unions, followed by O'Higgins and Valparaíso. On the other hand, Aysén had the lowest share of same-sex unions, followed by Los Ríos, Coquimbo and Magallanes.
Same-sex marriage
Background and court cases
The first attempts to legalize same-sex marriage in Chile occurred after the ban was legally challenged in various national and international courts in the early 2010s. The Constitutional Court of Chile heard oral arguments on 28 July 2011 regarding the constitutionality of article 102 of the Civil Code, which at the time banned same-sex marriage, but ruled in a 9–1 vote on 3 November that the ban was not unconstitutional. The ban was challenged at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2012. This lawsuit alleged that banning same-sex marriage violated the American Convention on Human Rights and Chile's international obligations. The Piñera Government expressed its opposition to the suit in 2013. Even though some minor presidential candidates had announced their support for same-sex marriage, Michelle Bachelet was the first major candidate to declare her support in the lead up to the November 2013 presidential elections. On 11 April 2013, she announced her intention to legalize same-sex marriage if elected president. Bachelet, who had previously been president of Chile between 2006 and 2010, won the election on 15 December 2013. After Bachelet's inauguration in March 2014, MOVILH announced that they would seek an amicable solution to the lawsuit presented to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. On 10 December 2014, a group of senators from various parties presented a bill legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption to the National Congress. On 17 February 2015, lawyers representing the government and MOVILH met to discuss the case, and the government announced that they would drop their opposition to same-sex marriage. A formal agreement between the two parties and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights was signed in April 2015.On 1 July 2016, the government announced that it would begin consultations on a same-sex marriage bill in September 2016, with the aim of finalizing it by mid-2017, and said it viewed a ban on same-sex marriage as a "human rights violation". President Bachelet stated before a United Nations General Assembly panel in September 2016 that the government would submit a bill to Congress "in the first half of 2017." In June 2017, she announced in a speech to Congress that the bill would be introduced in the second half of 2017. It was later confirmed that the bill would grant married same-sex couples equal adoption rights. The bill was introduced to Congress on 28 August 2017, before being submitted to the Senate on 5 September and referred to the Constitution, Legislation, Justice and Regulation Committee.
On 10 June 2016, the Third Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiago rejected another lawsuit filed by MOVILH. The court ruled that as Chilean legislation did not permit same-sex marriages, the civil registry could not marry same-sex couples. It also held that opening marriage to same-sex couples was a decision for Congress to address, and not the courts.
On 19 November 2017, Chile held parliamentary elections and the first round of the presidential election. According to newspaper La Tercera, a majority of the newly elected Congress was in favor of same-sex marriage. The Senate's Constitution, Legislation, Justice, and Regulation Committee began examining the bill on 27 November. Two days prior, an estimated 100,000 people marched in Santiago in favor of the bill's passage. Participants included many lawmakers and diplomats, including presidential candidate Alejandro Guillier. On 17 December 2017, Sebastián Piñera was re-elected president of Chile. Though personally opposed to same-sex marriage at the time, Piñera said he would respect the April 2015 agreement with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, saying that "Chile's international commitments will be fulfilled". In the wake of a January 2018 Inter-American Court of Human Rights advisory opinion that parties to the American Convention on Human Rights should grant same-sex couples "accession to all existing domestic legal systems of family registration, including marriage, along with all rights that derive from marriage", MOVILH urged Piñera to implement the decision. In early March 2018, a government spokesperson said that passing the same-sex marriage bill would not be a "priority", but that Piñera would not veto or oppose it. In early April 2018, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights summoned the Chilean Government to a meeting to discuss the status of the measures included in the agreement reached in April 2015. At the meeting, which took place in the Dominican Republic on 3 May, the government informed the Commission that it would continue to respect the agreement. On 17 May 2018, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, Piñera signed the agreement and pledged to continue the work of the previous administration in legalizing same-sex marriage.
In December 2018, the Supreme Court of Chile recognized marriage as a fundamental right, in a case legal experts suggested may pave the way for same-sex marriage to be legalized in Chile. Shortly after the ruling was issued, a same-sex couple challenged the same-sex marriage ban in court. On 26 April 2019, after the Supreme Court referred the case back to the Santiago Court of Appeals due to a probable constitutional violation, the latter ruled that denying the couple a marriage license was not illegal. The plaintiffs appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court; however, the appeal was not accepted.
Parliamentary debate and approval
Committee debate on the same-sex marriage bill resumed on 9 January 2019, and continued in May. In May 2019, Senate President Jaime Quintana said that the bill, along with a bill permitting same-sex couples to adopt, would have "priority" in the Senate agenda. In July 2019, upon assuming his role as chairman of the Constitution Committee, Senator Felipe Harboe began fast-tracking the procedure of the same-sex marriage bill, as opposition parties announced their intention to push for debate in Congress before going into recess in February 2020. On 15 January 2020, the bill was approved at first reading in the Senate by 22 votes to 16. In October 2020, it was reported that the Constitution Committee had approved 29 of the articles in the bill, with 27 remaining to be approved.On 1 June 2021, during his last annual address to the National Congress, Piñera announced that his government would support the bill and place urgency on bringing it forward to a vote. The Senate approved the legislation by 28 votes to 14 on 21 July. The bill then moved to the Chamber of Deputies. It was approved by the Constitution Committee of the Chamber of Deputies on 13 October, and by the Finance Committee of the Chamber on 2 November. On 23 November, the Chamber of Deputies approved an amended version by 101 votes to 30. As it was modified by the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate Constitution Committee decided to send the bill to a joint committee of both houses. On 6 December, the joint committee voted 7–2 in favor of the Chamber version of the bill with modifications, including a compromise provision that spouses of transgender people wishing to change their name and legal gender should first be consulted as to whether they wish to seek a divorce, which was criticized by MOVILH as "transphobic".
| Party | Voted for | Voted against | Abstained | Absent |
| Independent Democratic Union | – | – | ||
| National Renewal | – | – | ||
| Socialist Party | – | – | – | |
| Party for Democracy | – | – | – | |
| Christian Democratic Party | – | – | – | |
| Democratic Revolution | – | – | – | |
| Evópoli | – | – | – | |
| Progressive Party | – | – | – | |
| Independent | – | – | ||
| Total | style="text-align:center;" | 14 | 0 | 1 |
| Total |
| Party | Voted for | Voted against | Abstained | Absent |
| National Renewal | ||||
| Independent Democratic Union | ||||
| Socialist Party | – | – | ||
| Christian Democratic Party | – | |||
| Communist Party | – | – | ||
| Party for Democracy | – | – | – | |
| Democratic Revolution | – | – | ||
| Evópoli | – | – | ||
| Radical Party | – | – | ||
| Social Convergence | – | – | – | |
| Social Green Regionalist Federation | – | – | ||
| Commons | – | – | ||
| Liberal Party | – | – | – | |
| Republican Party | – | – | – | |
| Green Ecologist Party | – | – | – | |
| Humanist Party | – | – | – | |
| Independent | – | – | ||
| Total | style="text-align:center;" | 30 | 2 | 22 |
| Total |
Finally, the joint committee's bill was passed by both houses on 7 December 2021, with the Senate voting 21–8 with 3 absentions and the Chamber voting 82–20 with 2 absentions. The bill was signed by Piñera on 9 December. It was published in the Diario Oficial de la República de Chile on 10 December, and took effect 90 days later. The first same-sex marriage in Chile was performed in Santiago on 10 March between Javier Silva and Jaime Nazar. Article 102 of the Civil Code was amended to read: Marriage is a solemn, indissoluble contract by which two persons are united for life, in order to live together, to procreate, and to help each other.
| Party | Voted for | Voted against | Abstained | Absent |
| Independent Democratic Union | – | |||
| National Renewal | – | |||
| Socialist Party | – | – | ||
| Party for Democracy | – | – | ||
| Christian Democratic Party | – | – | ||
| Democratic Revolution | – | – | – | |
| Evópoli | – | – | – | |
| Progressive Party | – | – | – | |
| Independent | – | |||
| Total | style="text-align:center;" | 8 | 3 | 11 |
| Total |
| Party | Voted for | Voted against | Abstained | Absent |
| National Renewal | – | |||
| Independent Democratic Union | ||||
| Socialist Party | – | – | ||
| Christian Democratic Party | – | |||
| Communist Party | – | – | ||
| Party for Democracy | – | – | ||
| Democratic Revolution | – | – | ||
| Evópoli | – | – | ||
| Radical Party | – | |||
| Social Convergence | – | – | ||
| Social Green Regionalist Federation | – | – | ||
| Commons | – | – | – | |
| Liberal Party | – | – | ||
| Republican Party | – | – | – | |
| Green Ecologist Party | – | – | – | |
| Humanist Party | – | – | – | |
| Independent | – | |||
| Total | style="text-align:center;" | 20 | 2 | 51 |
| Total |
Attempts to modify constitution
In response to proposed legislation to recognize same-sex unions and potential legal battles brewing in the Constitutional Court, members of the Independent Democrat Union introduced a constitutional amendment on 11 August 2011 seeking to define marriage as the "union of a man and a woman". The amendment was not brought to a vote. On 16 June 2016, two UDI MPs introduced a bill to amend the Constitution of Chile to ban same-sex marriage and prohibit same-sex couples from adopting. The measure was not successful.In October 2020, Chile voted in a national plebiscite to rewrite its constitution, and in a May 2021 election voters elected the members of the Constitutional Convention, the body tasked with writing the new constitution. LGBT groups were hopeful that same-sex marriage and adoption rights for same-sex couples would be enshrined in this new constitution, particularly as the right-wing governing coalition Chile Vamos had failed to reach the third of members needed to veto in the Convention. The proposed constitution, which eventually did not address same-sex marriage explicitly, was rejected in a referendum in September 2022.
Statistics
In the first month following the entry into force of the marriage law, 170 same-sex couples had married in Chile, of which 101 were lesbian couples. By February 10, 2023, 2,254 same-sex marriages had been performed in Chile; 1,227 between two women and 1,027 between two men. 5,049 same-sex marriages had taken place by June 2024, mostly in the Santiago Metropolitan Region. Reports in December 2024 determined that 6,281 same-sex couples had married in Chile since the implementation of the law.Religious performance
In 2011, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile expressed its support for same-sex civil unions. The church defines marriage as "a union of two people in love based on mutual trust and fidelity" without making distinction as to the sex of the contracting parties. Clergy are free to decide whether to perform blessings for same-sex couples. The Lutheran Church in Chile similarly defines marriages as "a union of two people in love" and offers blessings to couples. Some Jewish groups also bless same-sex unions. On 25 February 2023, a same-sex marriage was held according to the rites of the Mapuche religion. The couple, Viviana Burgos Valenzuela and Rosa Salamanca Conalef, had held a civil marriage two days earlier in the town of Villa Almagro in Nueva Imperial. The religious ceremony was officiated by a Mapuche spiritual leader in a native forest.The Catholic Church opposes same-sex marriage and does not allow its priests to officiate at such marriages. In December 2023, the Holy See published Fiducia supplicans, a declaration allowing Catholic priests to bless couples who are not considered to be married according to church teaching, including the blessing of same-sex couples. In March 2004, Archbishop of Santiago Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa expressed opposition to same-sex marriage but called for regulating same-sex unions "in some way"; "One can understand that homosexuals can form stable relationships, that they want to have a community property, but that is not marriage. It must be given another name."
Public opinion
An April 2009 poll concluded that only 33% of Chileans were in favor of allowing same-sex couples to marry, with 65% opposed. However, support among young people was much higher: according to a study by the National Youth Institute of Chile, 56% of people aged between 15 and 29 supported same-sex marriage, while 51% supported adoption by same-sex couples. A July 2011 nationwide CEP poll found that 52% of Chileans were in favor of granting legal rights to same-sex unions: 18% supported civil marriage for same-sex couples, while 34% preferred giving same-sex couples a "legal union". When the question was slightly rephrased, 57% of Chileans were against same-sex marriage with "the same rights as a heterosexual couple" and 27% in favor, while support for a "legal union" was higher at 35%, with 57% against. In all questions, support for same-sex unions was higher among the younger and better educated. With regard to adoption of children by lesbian couples, 24% were in favor and 61% against. Support was lower for adoption by male gay couples: 20% in favor and 64% against.An August 2012 poll by Radio Cooperativa – Imaginaccion found that 55% of Chileans supported same-sex marriage, while 41% were opposed. A Pew Research Center survey conducted the following year showed that 46% of Chileans supported same-sex marriage, while 42% were opposed. According to a 2014 survey by the Chilean pollster Cadem Plaza Pública, 55% of Chileans were in favor of same-sex marriage, whilst 39% were against. A poll carried out in September 2015 by the same polling organization found that 60% of Chileans supported same-sex marriage, whereas opposition was 36%. The organization's 2016 survey found 61% support and 36% opposition. A further poll carried out in July 2017 by the same organization showed that support stood at 61% and opposition at 32%.
A 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study poll, published in April 2018, found that 79% of Chilean eighth graders supported same-sex marriage. The study showed that Chile had the highest support among the five Latin American polled; support in Mexico was at 78%, Colombia at 63%, Peru at 48%, and the Dominican Republic at 38%. Chile's support was a 21% increase from 2009.
The 2017 AmericasBarometer showed that 59% of Chileans supported same-sex marriage. A poll conducted for Radio Cooperativa – Imaginaccion between 24 and 27 August 2017 found that 62% of Chileans supported same-sex marriage, while 35% were against. In the same poll, 47% supported adoption by same-sex couples, while 51% were opposed. A poll carried out by Cadem Plaza Pública in April 2018 put support for same-sex marriage at 64% and opposition at 34%, while 2% were unsure or had refused to answer. Support and opposition to adoption rights both stood at 49%. In 2019, the organization showed that support for same-sex marriage had increased to 66%, with 54% also in favor of permitting same-sex couples to adopt. In 2022, support for same-sex marriage reached 82% and support for adoption rights reached 70%.