The new law giving gay couples the right to adopt children has hit something of a linguistic snag:
A closer reading of an adoptions law promoted by Uruguay’s gay rights groups suggests it might not enable adoptions by gay and lesbian couples after all.
With the law awaiting President Tabare Vazquez’s signature, gay rights groups have been celebrating the prospect that Uruguay could become the first country in Latin America to give gay and lesbian couples the opportunity to adopt.
But nowhere in the law does it specifically say that homosexual couples have a right to adopt. And in some places, it suggests otherwise – for example by specifying how the child should take a mother and father’s surnames. Lawyers, judges and even the law’s own authors now have doubts about how the law will be applied.
Civil rights attorney Juan A. Ramirez said that judges still won’t be able to approve same-sex adoptions, because this intent isn’t explicitly described in the law.
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