The Struggle of the Catholic Social Movement against Same-sex Marriage in Colombia: A Means to Legitimize the Catholic Life Style (2009-2015)

Abstract

Based on the analysis of judicial files, parliamentary acts and semi-structured interviews, this paper seeks to contribute to the study of the influence exerted by the Colombian Catholic conservative countermovement over the formulation of legal norms, as well as the reasons behind its interest in family legislation. To achieve these goals, first, we show that, between 2009 and 2015, mobilization against equality for same-sex couples was organized by Lefebvristes defending the establishment of a state with official religion and by intransigent lay people acting in accordance with their religious duty to evangelize law and ensure its conformity with the divine natural law. Secondly, after demonstrating that the Catholic family model survived the formal process of secularization of civil law, we show that the activists fought against same-sex marriage to guarantee the domination and survival of Catholic lifestyle trough ensuring law didn´t become detached from the traditional family structure.