Costa Rica Will Implement Marriage Equality Next Week

Marriage equality will officially be the law of the land in Costa Rica by Tuesday.

Over the past couple years, the country has seen several court rulings in favor of marriage rights for same-sex couples.

In January 2018, the San Jose, Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which advocates for human rights on behalf of the Organization of American States in over 20 Latin American countries, ruled that all of the countries under its jurisdiction must legalize same-sex marriage if they hadn't already done so.

Fabricio Alvarado Munoz, the presidential nominee of the conservative National Restoration Party in Costa Rica that year, called the decision an affront to the country's traditional Catholic values, promising to remove the nation from the Court of Human Rights' jurisdiction if he was elected.

But Carlos Alvarado Quesada, who won the presidential election, promised to honor the ruling and called for Costa Rica to be a leader in Central America and the world as a socially progressive country.

In November 2018, following several rulings in favor of same-sex marriage, the Costa Rican Supreme Court gave the country's legislative assembly 18 months to implement marriage equality.

Quesada tweeted his support at the time, writing, "It's now just a matter of time. Full equal rights will come, love will prevail."

This week, 26 conservative legislators tried to defy that deadline by proposing yet another 18-month extension due to the ongoing pandemic. However, the Legislative Assembly rejected the motion, thus making marriage equality the law of the land once the deadline is met Tuesday, Gay Star News reports.

Other Latin American countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, along with certain states in Mexico, have already implemented marriage equality, though it remains widely debated.