Law and Gay Human Rights.

Constitutional Rights: The article 53.

As you may know, a big part of our Constitution -enacted in 1853- was copied from the U.S. Constitution. But in the Civil Rights Section, there was a original and unique article. This article orders that: "The private acts of men, while they don't affect the public moral or order, are exempt from the competence of the judges, and can be only judged by God".

This article prevented gay sex criminalization or sodomy crimes, like the ones that existed (and even still exist  in countries like Chile, United States, United Kingdom, etc). No one could say what you do with your body or life, if you made it in the safeguard of your house/apartment since 1853.

I heard some stories about doubting about the sexuality of the writer of our constitution, Juan Bautista Alberdi. I don't have sources to confirm or not this versions (and I don't want to get sued by his family who may think being gay is a bad thing). The only thing that matters is that this article was unique in the World, was his invention, and he was pretty enlightened and bright. My conclusion, you don't need to be gay to defend our rights, only enlightened and bright guy.

Discrimination.

Our Constitution bans discrimination, and all the Human Rights Treaties that are part of it, but does not talk about sexual orientation (it wasn't a term that existed in 1853, and this part of the Bill wasn't changed in the 1994 Reform.

Buenos Aires Constitution -dictated in 1996- forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Civil Unnion and Gay Marriage Rights.

Buenos Aires was the first city in Latin America to legalize same sex civil unions. In the scope of the Buenos Aires City, from July 2003, it is possible to celebrate a civil union, that allows couples of the same sex to be recognized like families by the Local government.

It is not a marriage, but a contract that it qualifies to pairs of gays and lesbians - with more of a year of coexistence and also of heterosexuals whom they do not love to marry, to have official recognition and some benefits included/understood in the marriage contract.

Since this civil unions were approved, the Local Civil Registry celebrated 185 civil unions: 122 between homosexuals and 63 between pairs of heterosexuals.

With this union, anyone of the two can request in its place of work that their pair is considered as a relative to be able to enroll him in his/her Medical Insurance, to request license in case of disease or to require retirements and pensions. For that they need to get a note certifying the couple lives together.

This proceeding can be made from the first day of coexistence and it is obtained in the Civil Registry and each one of the Decentralized Centers of the Local Government.