AmericasBarometer: Topical Brief – April 11, 2013 Same -Sex Marriage in Uruguay: A New Law in Line with Citizens´ Preferences By Dr. María Fernanda Boidi, Vanderbilt University n April 10, the Parliament of Uruguay approved a law that recognizes the right Figure 1. Approval of Same-Sex Couples Oto marry people of the same sex.1 Having the Right to Marry in Latin America Uruguay, where homosexual relations have and the Caribbean, 2012 been “legal” since the 30s, became the twelfth country in the world to guarantee the right to same-sex marriage. Canada 67.2 Uruguay 67.1 Argentina 55.4 The law was passed by the Senate with 23 votes United States 52.0 in favor (and 8 against). In the Chamber of Brazil 49.8 Mexico 45.4 Deputies, the law was passed with 71 votes of Chile 45.1 the 92 members present. The law received Colombia 36.7 Ecuador 26.1 support from representatives of all political Bolivia 24.7 parties. The Uruguayan press reports Peru 23.0 Suriname 22.5 expressions of appreciation from rights Costa Rica 22.3 activists for sexual minorities, however, the Venezuela 22.2 Dom. Rep. 21.4 passage of this law satisfies many more people Panama 19.5 than those who will directly benefit from it or Nicaragua 19.3 Trinidad & Tobago 17.6 who were fiercely committed to the cause. At Paraguay 16.1 least that is what the data from the 2012 Guatemala 16.1 2 Honduras 15.0 AmericasBarometer suggests. El Salvador 10.0 Guyana 8.8 Belize 8.4 Haiti 6.4 Jamaica 5.1 1 A preliminary version of this report appeared in the Razones y Personas Blog, in December 2012: 0 20 40 60 80 Approval of Same-Sex Couples http://razonesypersonas.blogspot.com/2012/12/matrimonio- Having the Right to Marry igualitario-en-uruguay-logro.html 95% Confidence Interval (Design-Effects Based) 2 Funding for the 2012 AmericasBarometer round mainly Source: © AmericasBarometer by LAPOP came from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Important sources of support were also the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the Uruguayans rank second in the Americas in United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and Vanderbilt University. Prior issues in the Insights series can expressing support for gay marriage, just one be found at: tenth of a point below Canada (67.1 and 67.2, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/insights.php. The data respectively). Argentina, the third-ranked on which they are based can be found at country with high support for marriage http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/survey-data.php © 2013, Latin American Public Opinion Project www.AmericasBarometer.org between same sex individuals, falls more than 10 points lower (55.4) than Uruguay. This Figure 2. Same-sex Marriage Approval in support is based on responses to the question: Uruguay, 2012 “How strongly do you approve or disapprove 50 of same-sex couples having the right to marry?” Figure 1 shows the averages for each 40 country, expressed on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 indicates “strongly disapproves” and 30 100 “strongly approves.” 48.1% 20 In Uruguay, not suprisingly, those who are 10 20.4% 7.7% more in favor of marriage between 5.9% 5.7% 2.0% 3.2% 3.5% 0 1.6% 1.9% homosexuals are younger, more educated, and Strongly 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Strongly disapprove approve place themselves toward the left of the How strongly do you approve or disapprove of same-sex couples having the right to marry? (Only Uruguay) ideological spectrum.3 Source: © AmericasBarometer by LAPOP Despite these nuances, support is widespread: 48.1% of respondents in Uruguay indicated achievement for gay rights activists and sexual that they “strongly approve” of gay marriage, minorities, but is also a law that is congruent while only 20.4%, were at the extreme with the opinion of the majority of opposite, strongly disapproving. Figure 2 Uruguayans, namely, that they feel that sam- shows the distribution of preferences regarding sex couples should be granted the right to the approval of the right for homosexuals to marry. The passage of the law shows that the marry, now expressed in the original scale of 1 actions of the representatives are closely in line to 10, which was used in the questionnaire. with the preferences of their constituents, This figure shows the percentage of which is often not the case. It is notable, respondents corresponding to each of the however, that in the vast majority of the categories.4 countries in the Americas, the public expresses far less support for the right to marry for same- According to the data, then, unlike opinions on sex couples. on many other controversial issues, such as the legalization of abortion, for example, we do not find a sharply divided or polarized public Dr. Maria Fernanda Boidi opinion, but one clearly inclined to support the ([email protected]) is Program legislation that will take effect as soon as the Coordinator and Operations at LAPOP and co- Executive Power fulfills the formal requirement leader of the LAPOP team in Uruguay. of enacting it. Full results of the 2012 AmericasBarometer - The AmerciasBarometer data suggest that the Uruguay survey and the AmericasBarometer 2012 new legislation represents an historical comparative study can be consulted on-line at www.LapopSurveys.org. The full data set is available for on-line analysis or download (in 3 According to the results of the multivariate analysis not SPSS and Stata formats) at no cost. shown here, but available to the interested readers by contacting the author. 4 When these categories are recoded to the scale of 0 to 100 and averaged for Uruguay, we obtain the average of 67.1 shown in Figure 1. That is, then, the same information analyzed in two different ways. Figure 1 allows for a regional comparison, while Figure 2 helps visualize the distribution of the preferences in Uruguay. © 2013, Latin American Public Opinion Project www.AmericasBarometer.org .