Costa Rica high
court rules against same-sex marriage

The supreme court of Costa Rica has rejected a bid to legalize marriage for same-sex couples there. Costa Rican lawyer Yashin Castrillo Fernandez filed a lawsuit in 2003, arguing that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples was discriminatory and unconstitutional. But the conservative news agency Notivida reports that the high court ruled against Castrillo 5-2. The justices wrote that marriage in the Costa Rican constitution "stems historically from a context where it is understood to be between a man and a woman." But Chief Justice Luis Fermando Solano suggested that the country's lawmakers could take up the issue and enact a law creating civil unions. Solano noted that while more than three quarters of the country's population is Roman Catholic, the high court applied "juridical, and not religious, principles" in its ruling. (Sirius OutQ News)