Same-sex marriage in Argentina

Before this, some jurisdictions had enacted civil union laws, including the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the province of Río Negro.

[9][10] On August 19, 2008, the Government of Argentina announced that it was allowing cohabiting same-sex couples who have lived together for over five years the right to collect the pensions of their deceased partners.

[12][13] Two weeks before the 2009 mid-term elections, Justice Minister Aníbal Fernández issued a statement saying that he was in favor of starting a same-sex marriage debate in Congress, that a gender-neutral law would "end discrimination", and that "many people are demanding it".

[15] In late 2009, the Argentine Congress considered two proposals, sponsored by Silvia Augsburger (Socialist Party) and Vilma Ibarra (New Encounter), to amend the Civil Code to permit same-sex marriages.

[32] After a marathon session that extended into the early hours of the next day, on July 15 the Senate passed the same-sex marriage bill by a vote of 33 to 27.

The first marriage was performed on July 30, 2010, between Miguel Ángel Calefato and José Luis Navarro in Frías, Santiago del Estero.

The first such marriage occurred in San Miguel de Tucumán on August 3, 2010, between Juan Carlos Lizárraga and Rody Humano, a transgender woman who served as a councilwoman in Bella Vista.

[49][50] On July 27, 2012, a Buenos Aires couple, Alejandro Grinblat and Carlos Dermgerd, became the first men in Latin America to obtain double paternity of a newborn.

[52] On February 14, 2007, activists María Rachid and Claudia Castrosín Verdú filed a judicial appeal to declare articles 172 and 188 of the Civil Code unconstitutional for preventing same-sex couples from marrying.

[53] On November 12, 2009, a court in Buenos Aires approved the marriage of a same-sex couple, Alex Freyre and José María Bello, ruling that articles 172 and 188 of the Civil Code were unconstitutional.

[58] In December 2009, the Governor of Tierra del Fuego, Fabiana Ríos, ordered the civil registry office to perform and register their marriage.

On December 28, the two men were legally wed in Ushuaia, the provincial capital city, making them the first same-sex couple to marry in Latin America.

Journalist Bruno Bimbi revealed that, although the men were both gay, they were not a couple and only acted as such as part of a plan to champion LGBT rights.

[65] On March 10, 2010, a judge in Buenos Aires declared a second same-sex marriage, between Damián Bernath and Jorge Esteban Salazar Capón, illegal.

[72][73] In July 2010, while the law was under consideration, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires (later Pope Francis), wrote a letter to Argentina's cloistered nuns in which he said:[74][75] In the coming weeks, the Argentine people will face a situation whose outcome can seriously harm the family…At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children.

[33][79] By July 2012, about 5,800 same-sex marriages had occurred in Argentina according to the Federación Argentina de Lesbianas, Gays, Bisexuales y Trans, distributed by jurisdiction as follows: Buenos Aires (1,455), the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (1,405), Santa Fe (664), Córdoba (632), Mendoza (389), Tucumán (199), Salta (178), Entre Ríos (128), Neuquén (101), San Juan (70), Misiones (64), Río Negro (64), La Pampa (58), Jujuy (56), Chaco (51), Catamarca (49), Chubut (47), Formosa (44), Santiago del Estero (42), San Luis (37), Santa Cruz (35), Corrientes (31), La Rioja (31), and Tierra del Fuego (14).

[90] In July 2016, Jesús Regules and Jonathan Díaz were married at the Iglesia Nuestra Señora del Valle in the town of San Roque near Maipú by an Anglican priest, the first church wedding for a same-sex couple in Argentina.

[93] Bishop of San Isidro Óscar Vicente Ojea Quintana issued a statement on 30 December that "a brutal experience of abandonment by the Church that has done so much harm to us and that has alienated so many brothers and sisters.

[101] A Pew Research Center poll conducted between February and May 2023 showed that 67% of Argentines supported same-sex marriage, 26% were opposed and 7% did not know or had refused to answer.