Bogotá, Colombia, Apr 25, 2013 / 11:02 am
By a vote of 51-17, the Colombian Senate has rejected a bill that would legalize same-sex "marriage" in the country.
The bill was proposed by Senator Armando Benedetti in August 2011. It received only a fraction of the 50 'yes' votes that would have been needed from the nation's 98 senators in order to pass.
Both supporters and opponents of the bill demonstrated outside the Senate building as lawmakers voted down the measure after several hours of debate on April 23.
The president of the Bishops' Conference of Colombia, Cardinal Ruben Salazar, had issued a plea to lawmakers to consider the Church's arguments on the question and to protect marriage as being a union of one man and one woman.