Brazil: Gay Dad Awarded Same Parental Leave Rights as Mothers

A gay man in Brazil was granted four months of paid parental leave -- the same amount of time that biological mothers are granted in Brazil -- after he and his partner adopted a child.

Lucimar da Silva will be the first man to benefit from "maternity" leave in Brazil, two years after he and his partner, Rafael Gerhardt, took custody of their child. Typically, Brazilian fathers get only five paid days off from work when their children are born.

Shortly after adopting the child, da Silva argued that at least one of them should be able to take off the same amount of time that a mother would.

"However unusual it may seem to grant maternity leave to a male person ... this hypothesis is possible when the father takes care of the newborn," the nation's social security agency ruled, according to The Guardian.

The decision will not bear a legal precedent, however.