Uruguay recognizes gay unions

In a first in Latin America, the tiny country lodged between Brazil and Argentina has passed legislation that will grant homosexual and heterosexual couples living together the same rights of married couples:

Uruguay on Thursday became the first Latin American country to recognize gay civil unions, after President Tabare Vazquez signed a law granting certain legal rights to cohabiting couples of any gender.

The new law guarantees heterosexual or homosexual couples who have lived together continuously for more than five years social benefits enjoyed by married couples such as joint property ownership and hereditary rights.

The text recognizes "two people -- of any sex, identity, orientation or sexual option -- who maintain an emotional relationship sexual in nature, that is exclusive, stable and permanent, without being united in matrimony."

The law takes effect next Monday, January 1^st 2008.

Good luck to all you guys and girls down there. Unfortunately, here we're still dealing with the Inquisition.

More on it here.