The decision, however, did not include pension or health insurance rights. In a second ruling on October 5, 2007, the Constitutional Court extended health insurance benefits, and on April 17, 2008 a third decision granted pension rights.

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On June 19, 2007, an unprecedented gay-rights bill, which would have provided unregistered same-sex partners the same rights and benefits as opposite-sex partners, was defeated. The bill was introduced to address what the country's top court identified as a legislative "deficit of protection" for same-sex couples.

While the bill had passed in the lower house of Congress, and had been endorsed by Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, it was opposed by the Roman Catholic Church and defeated by a bloc of conservative legislators in the Colombian Senate.

Had it passed, the bill would have made Colombia the first nation in Latin America to grant unregistered gay couples in long-term relationships the same rights as heterosexual couples, with the exception of adoption rights.

Nevertheless, supporters of the measure have vowed to continue to push for basic legal and economic rights for Colombia's gay couples.

Significant Colombian GLBTQ Cultural Figures

Significant Colombian-born glbtq individuals include the poet Miguel Ángel Osorio (1883-1942), better known as Porfirio Barba-Jacob, the third and definitive of the pen names under which he published his works. He lived openly as a homosexual, even in provincial or intolerant societies, and traveled widely, residing in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, New Orleans, and Cuba, among other places, while publishing his poems in literary reviews, journals, and newspapers.

Fernando Vallejo Rendón (b. 1942) is a writer and filmmaker, whose best-known work is the 1994 semi-autobiographical novel La virgen de los sicarios (Our Lady of the Assassins),about a middle-aged gay writer who returns to his hometown of Medellín after an absence of 30 years only to find himself trapped in an atmosphere of violence and murder. The novel was made into a feature-length film in 2000, based on the author's own screenplay and directed by Barbet Schroeder.

Luis Caballero Holguín (1943-1995) is one of the most significant Latin American painters. He considered his homosexuality a fundamental component of his artistic expression, and during the last twenty-five years of his life, the nude male figure was his only subject matter.

Caballero died of complications from AIDS in 1995. The following year, the city of Bogotá established in his memory the Premio Luis Caballero, a major artistic prize for Latin American artists thirty-five years and older.

Writer, politician, and literary critic Gustavo Álvarez Gardeazábal (b. 1945) has published nineteen novels, beginning with Piedra Pintada (The Painted Rock) in 1965. One of his most regarded novels is Cóndores no entierran todos los días (1971; Condors Are Not Buried Every Day), about the political violence in Colombia during the 1950s.

He is also Colombia's first openly gay elected official, first as the mayor of the small town of Tuluá, from 1988 until 1990, and then in 1997 as the governor of the Colombian province of Valle del Cauca, a position he held until 2000.

The writer Jaime Manrique (b. 1949), who currently resides in New York City, is the award-winning author of the memoir Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me (1999), and the novels Colombian Gold: A Novel of Power and Corruption (1983), Latin Moon in Manhattan (1992), Twilight at the Equator (1997), and Our Lives Are the Rivers (2006).

Alonso Sánchez Baute (b. 1964) is the author of the 2002 novel Al diablo la maldita primavera (To Hell with the Damned Spring), about a mild-mannered bureaucrat who gradually transforms himself into a drag queen. It was awarded the 2002 Premio Nacional de Novela Ciudad de Bogotá. The novel was later adapted for the theater by Colombian director Jorge Ali Triana and presented at the Teatro Nacional de Bogotá in 2004.

Colombia's GLBTQ Organizations and Pride Events

There are several glbtq organizations in Colombia, including Colombia Diversa, a human rights organization founded in 2004 to work for the recognition, promotion, defense, and development of glbtq rights in Colombia.

Stonewall Javeriano is a student-run glbtq organization associated with the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá.

Social and support groups for Colombian lesbians and bisexual women include DeGeneres-E and Triangular Negro.

Colombia's first gay pride parade was celebrated in Bogotá in 1982. Approximately thirty-two gay men and lesbians marched in the parade, with a contingent of nearly one hundred police officers dispatched for crowd control. Since then, Colombia has celebrated Gay Pride Day annually on June 28, marked by parades and other activities in most of the major cities in the country.

A notably diverse country, Brazil is also home to one of the world's most dynamic glbtq political movements.

Contemporary Art, which designates new currents in art since 1970, is identified with postmodernism; during this period an art addressing gay and lesbian identity emerged.

Although glbtq organizations have emerged in Guatemala, hate crimes against homosexuals continue to be a serious problem.

Those countries that allow the immigration of glbtq persons based on persecution in their home countries often raise difficulties or apply the existing laws inequitably, especially in the case of glbtq couples who apply for entry as domestic partners.

Gay and lesbian Latin American artists frequently use their art to portray their desire for sexual and political liberation, often combining traditional subject matter with personal symbols and insights to stress their longing for acceptance.

Although Latin Americans have produced many works that have homoerotic themes or gay and lesbian characters, their sensibilities are largely different from those of North American and European writers.

Same-sex sexual practices among the indigenous peoples of Latin America were seen by their Spanish and Portuguese conquerors as evidence of their cultural inferiority and were repressed through both religious and civil means.

Although Mexico has had a long history of homosexual activity that began before the Conquest, its Latin American machismo has problematized the acceptance of glbtq people.

Thanks to the valiant struggle of activists to counter a long tradition of intolerance and machismo, Nicaragua now has a more visible glbtq community than ever before.

Luis Caballero Holguín, one of the most significant Latin American painters of the second half of the twentieth century, considered his homosexuality a fundamental component of his artistic expression.

Versatile Colombian-born author Jaime Manrique has written novels, short stories, poetry, and works of nonfiction with gay themes.

California artist Lari Pittman creates visually beautiful and exciting paintings that depict the anxiety attendant on being a gay male in America.