The politics of sexuality in Portugal: confronting tradition, enacting change

Abstract

Portugal is a Southern European, majority Catholic and post-dictatorship country that, somewhat surprisingly, has responded rapidly and radically to lesbian and gay movements’ demands, as well as to European Union (EU) policies on discrimination (Carneiro, 2009; Cascais, 2006; Santos, 2008). Despite the increasing recognition of same-sex rights, family law is still a place of contradiction, ambiguity and strong contestation. Drawing on doctoral research conducted between 2005 and 2008, in this chapter I start by offering an overview of social and political changes since the Portuguese revolution for democracy in 1974. I then examine the relationship between same-sex individual- and relational-claims and socio-legal obstacles and advances, highlighting the centrality of two major valuediscourses (Roseneil and Williams, 2004) amongst politicians: ‘the family’ and ‘the child’. I suggest that LGBT rights face a situation of ‘normative ambiguity’ (Krieger, 2003) – on the one hand, the Portuguese Constitution provides protection from (individual) discrimination; on the other hand, specific laws mirror the heteronormative value-discourses of the lawmaker, preserving the law as a site of (relational) discrimination. In the last section of the chapter I explore how legal change was possible despite the tenacity of such dominant cultural value-discourses. In this regard the role of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement has been particularly significant, as the approval of same-sex marriage in 2010 illustrates.