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SANTIAGO, Chile, June 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Following months of resistance, Chilean president Sebastian Piñera capitulated last Friday to the demands of homosexualist organizations and agreed to introduce legislation to create “civil unions” between people of the same sex.

Until recently, the otherwise conservative Piñera was receiving the praise of pro-family organizations for his strong stance in favor of marriage, as well as the right to life. Although he had formerly promised to offer a civil unions bill, he had resisted demands by homosexual organizations to do so as a debate raged within his own party over the matter. Moreover, Piñera had strongly upheld marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and defined families in a way that excluded homosexual couples.

“I believe very much in marriage, in marriage as it should be, between a man and a woman, who marry each other to share a life project, to generate a new family, to receive the children that God sends us,” Piñera stated on May 20, provoking an angry reaction from Chile’s largest homosexual organization.

“We have a profound difference with Piñera regarding homosexual marriage, because to oppose oneself to the legal equality of all people is unacceptable in a democratic society,” said the homosexualist Movement of Homosexual Integration and Liberation (MOVILH) in a press communique. “What we repudiate with special force is that he is being retrogressive regarding his conception of the family.  He cannot change his position over this issue after assuming the presidency.”

The homosexual lobby’s fears that Piñera would stand firm in defense of the family were dispelled on Friday when his administration announced that it would soon introduce the promised legislation to codify “de facto unions” in order to “safeguard the dignity of these couples, whether they are of distinct sexes or the same sex.”

The homosexualist website On Top noted that Piñera’s decision followed heavy pressure from MOVILH, which “called for a national march in support of gay marriage and suggested that Piñera had not lived up to a campaign pledge to back a civil unions bill.”

However, pro-family organizations may still hope for vacillation on Piñera’s part—the president has promised the civil unions legislation several times in the past, and hasn’t yet delivered. It may be in part for that reason that MOVILH has reportedly decided to go ahead with its protest march on June 25 in Santiago, despite the apparent capitulation of the nation’s president.