{"id":150996,"date":"2018-02-04T04:00:50","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T09:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=150996"},"modified":"2018-02-04T04:00:50","modified_gmt":"2018-02-04T09:00:50","slug":"same-sex-marriage-a-key-issue-as-costa-ricans-go-to-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/04\/same-sex-marriage-a-key-issue-as-costa-ricans-go-to-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"Same sex marriage a key issue as Costa Ricans go to polls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A recent survey showed that more than a third of likely voters were undecided. (Pixabay photo)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica\u2014 Costa Ricans vote Sunday in a presidential race that has been turned on its ear by an\u00a0international\u00a0court ruling saying the country should let same-sex couples get married.<\/p>\n

Evangelical candidate Fabricio Alvarado recently vaulted into first place in the polls after he took a strong stance against gay marriage, which about two-thirds of Costa Ricans also oppose.<\/p>\n

His closest rivals are agri-businessman Antonio Alvarez of the opposition National Liberation Party and Carlos Alvarado of the governing Citizens’ Action Party.<\/p>\n

A recent survey showed that more than a third of likely voters were undecided. If no candidate gets 40 per cent or more, the top two finishers advance to an April 1 runoff.<\/p>\n

The January decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has come to play a central role in the campaign. It also ordered the country to grant same-sex couples rights such the ability to inherit estates and adopt children.<\/p>\n

Political analyst Francisco Barahona told The Associated Press that it came as an \u201cexternal shock\u201d for Costa Rica, a majority Roman Catholic nation.<\/p>\n

Fabricio Alvarado, a 43-year-old journalist, preacher and Christian singer, called the ruling a \u201csovereign violation\u201d and saw his support balloon in the polls as socially conservative voters gravitated to that message.<\/p>\n

Carlos Alvarado no relation is the only major candidate to openly back gay marriage and has picked up some support recently from socially liberal voters. A 38-year-old also trained as a journalist, he got his start in politics as communications director for Citizens’ Action and also was labour minister under current President Luis Guillermo Solis.<\/p>\n

Alvarez, a two-time president of the Legislative Assembly and a Cabinet minister under the first presidency of Oscar Arias in 1986-1990, says he opposes gay marriage but backs recognizing certain other rights for gay couples.<\/p>\n

Voters will also be selecting the 57 delegates that make up the Assembly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica\u2014 Costa Ricans vote Sunday in a presidential race that has been turned on its ear by …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":150997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[45787,4831,8156],"class_list":["post-150996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-w","tag-costa-ricans-vote","tag-presidential-race","tag-same-sex-marriage","mauthors-javier-cordoba","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}