Reuters.com – By Mica Rosenberg
Guatemala City (Reuters) – Guatemala’s Congress is to vote this week on a bill limiting the legal concept of family to heterosexual couples with children, a move rights groups say threatens health-care access for single parent and gay homes.
The proposed law is meant to reinforce existing legislation that prohibits gay marriage in Guatemala by explicitly saying families can only be formed by heterosexual couples.
But U.S.-based Human Rights Watch fears single parents could also be thrown into legal limbo.
“The bill … would declare that the nearly 40 percent of Guatemalan families that are not nuclear — consisting of father, mother and children — are not families at all,” the group said in an open letter opposing the proposal.