However, Senator Norma Morandini, another member of the president's party, compared the discrimination closeted gays face to the oppression imposed by Argentina's dictators decades ago. "What defines us is our humanity, and what runs against humanity is intolerance."

Same-sex civil unions have been legalised in Uruguay, Buenos Aires and some states in Mexico and Brazil. But Argentina now becomes the first country in Latin America to legalise same-sex marriage nationwide. Homosexual couples who marry will now get many more rights than civil unions, including adopting children and inheriting wealth. The proposed law broadly declares that "marriage provides for the same requisites and effects independent of whether the contracting parties are of the same or different sex."