Free, until the 21st Century

The ancient Mayan civilisation, almost 3000 years ago, was open and tolerant towards homosexuality. Indeed, there is evidence to state that ‘two- spirit people’, or people of the third gender, taking up unconventional gender roles in society, were widely accepted, and played an important part in spiritual worship. Male sex slaves for unmarried young men of elite families were common. Homosexual couples lived comfortably in society, along with heterosexual ones. Gays (if not lesbians), bisexuals and transgenders were, in short, accepted. Ironically, when the rest of the world is finally waking up to the possibility of such acceptance three millennia later, the Mayan descendents are trying to pass laws abolishing gay marriage.

On September 24, 2009, the Congress of El Salvador tried to pass reforms that would ban same sex marriage and prohibit homosexual couples from adopting children. Thanks to the ruling party in power, it failed. Gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens in this country have been enjoying social and legal acceptance in a way that is unimaginable in most other parts of the world. Articles 32, 33 and 34 of the Constitution make it possible for homosexual couples to live and adopt in the country with legal legitimacy, and also recognise their financial rights as partners and parents. El Salvador is one of the few, rare countries in the world to have reached such levels of equality in terms of LGBT and human rights. LGBT citizens in El Salvador, today, even enjoy right to inheritance.

However, in recent years, catholic and evangelical churches have been lobbying and protesting for same- sex marriages to be prohibited by law. They feel that only marriage between a man and a woman should be legally recognised, and that only such (i.e. heterosexual) couples should have the right to adopt and raise children. In their opinion, they are acting to preserve the sanctity of the institution of marriage by working for such reforms. Importantly, unlike in India until recently, they are not calling LGBT relationships “abnormal” or rejecting them from society outright. Their only concern is the institution of marriage, which, they believe, is sacred and only legitimate between a man and a woman.

For the 2009 legislative vote on the issue, the conservative churches had their hopes pinned on the many right wing parties in the assembly. The reforms needed 56 votes in favour to be passed in the Congress by the required two- thirds majority. It didn’t. The leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is the single majority party with 35 seats out of 84, and hence could stave off the required two- third majority vote through its own strength in Congress. The party had come to power in May 2009, with a strong pro- LGBT stance in its campaigning.

Despite the fact that a pro-LGBT party was voted to power by the people in 2009, the community is facing increasing discrimination in recent years in the country. In the months running up to that crucial vote in Congress, prayer meetings and demonstrations had been aplenty in the streets of El Salvador, and violence against LGBTs suddenly escalated.The catholic and evangelic churches have still kept the pressure mounting, and till date, tensions among the people of the country are only increasing.