Brazil and gay marriage - One prosecutor takes it on

A 27-year-old prosecutor Joao Gilberto Goncalves has begun the country's first serious effort to legalize same-sex marriage.

The Catholic Church (Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country) is outraged with Goncalves, the father of two small children and a baptized Catholic himself, says the case is straightforward.

"Gays deserve equal rights, not more rights or less rights. This is something that should be discussed objectively, without interference by the church's moral standard of marriage."

Since joining Brazil's elite class of federal prosecutors two years ago -- he has no boss and can't be fired -- Goncalves has quickly made a name for himself. He won a case requiring the government to release some secret files from the country's 1964-1985 dictatorship and plans to file a case that would legalize stem-cell research. Read more...