"They're gay, they can't come in"

On 29 October 2019, legislator Jairo "Bolota" Salazar blocked a group of demonstrators from entering the National Assembly in Panama City. His reasoning was blunt: "They're gay, they can't come in." The remark quickly made headlines and came to symbolise a dispute that occupied Panama for weeks.

At its centre was an extensive package of constitutional reforms that President Laurentino Cortizo had presented shortly after taking office. During the parliamentary debates, legislators added a controversial provision: the state was to recognise explicitly only marriage between a man and a woman. At the end of October, the package passed a first round of voting. Before it could have taken effect, further debates and a referendum would have been needed.

Same-sex couples were already barred from marriage under Panamanian family law. The new provision would have additionally enshrined this exclusion in the constitution. Yet only the year before, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights had called on the states of the region to give same-sex couples legal equality.

A broad protest movement quickly formed against the reform. Alongside queer people, students, human rights groups and many other young people took to the streets. Their resistance was also directed at other controversial parts of the package. The police cracked down hard on the protests and arrested around a hundred people.

At the beginning of November, Cortizo responded to the growing pressure. He recommended withdrawing the most controversial changes, including the restriction of marriage to a man and a woman. Salazar apologised for his remark. The planned constitutional article was dropped.

Legal equality nevertheless did not follow. Four years later, Panama's Supreme Court ruled that no right to marriage equality could be derived from the constitution. But the 2019 protests had shown that the fight for queer rights could find support far beyond the community itself.