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Gay adoption in Colombia
Maria Camila Salazar 10B
Adopting a child might be a wish for many couples. For example, some couples want to adopt because they can´t have a biological child; others because they like the idea of giving different opportunities to an orphan, and last but not least, some couples adopt because they are gay. This last point has been discussed since forever; some people say they have the right to adopt. However, others say this could be a very bad situation for society because little kids may be “bad” influenced or physiologically affected.
Lately Colombia´s constitutional court has said that sexual orientation can´t be used as a discriminating factor in second-parent adoption cases. This as you might know is a historical step towards complete legal equality for LGBTI.
In addition, when the decision was first announced many members from the gay community reacted with mixed feelings, thinking that the ruling would only apply to couples in which the children are biologically related to one of the parents. Nevertheless Mauricio Albarracin, director of the national advocacy group, pointed out that the court´s ruling was purely positive. He also said that the court recognized the rights of the family: "they recognized the rights of both, the child and the parents, to have the same protections as any other family”. Moreover, in another interview he talked about how, seven years ago, gay community had no rights, and calls this a really big step.
Despite this, not everyone is happy about the decision. The Democratic center announced that they totally disagreed by saying; “The Democratic Center rejects the adoption of children by couples of the same sex.” Alejandro Ordoñez, a devout catholic, spoke about the topic by saying the following words; “Adoption is a judicial institution established to protect the interest of the child in a situation of vulnerability, and for that reason, only a family that has its origins in a heterosexual relationship is capable to comply with the goals the judicial order has defined”.
Finally, Albarracin answered to this by saying that parents and children must not be discriminated for any reason. It doesn’t matter if they are part of a conventional, or a not conventional family. What say you?
Bogota´s traffic
María Jose Rojas 10B
Going from one place to another in Bogota, isn’t something fast and easy to do. You can take the SITP or a taxi, or you can drive your own car, but either way you will spend a large amount of time in huge traffic jams. For the last 10 years, the number of vehicles in Colombia’s capital has drastically increased, people buy and buy new cars, just because they have "pico y placa". They believe that having another vehicle will solve their problem. However, Bogota still has the same old roads and streets than the ones used 12 years ago: they haven’t been expanded, nor improved. For this reason, people are taking about one hour and thirty minutes to drive around the city.
According to some statistics, the trip from home to work, shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes; nevertheless, that’s not Bogota’s case. Nowadays, the average from going to one place to another is about 19.3 kilometers per hour. And it gets even worse, Bogota’s citizens spend about 7 million of hours a year inside a car or a public bus.
A solution that might help this problem is to use more bicycles or walk around Bogota. With this, you will not only help traffic in this chaotic city, but also save our planet earth. Still, the government’s support is crucial: they should collect money to build new routes for bicycles, and the Transit Police should start taking on the transgressors who are parked on the streets. Maybe, this way, things will get better, and Bogota may improve its traffic.
