When Mexico’s president announced a proposal to enshrine same-sex marriage in the Constitution this week, he bolstered Latin America’s standing as a global leader in promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights.

Mexico will become the fifth Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriages, should President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposal be approved. And it would follow a string of initiatives to strengthen LGBT rights and protections in the region: Ecuador in 2008 approved one of the world’s only constitutions that bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, while Argentina legalized adoption for same-sex couples in 2010, and Chile passed hate crime legislation in 2012.

Source: CSMonitor.com