Rainbow flags are out in force in Bogota ahead of a vote by the Senate, which is considering a marriage equality bill today.

The Senate was due to vote on the issue last Thursday but the vote was re-scheduled to today.

In 2001, the Colombian Constitutional Court issued a ruling that required politicians to ‘repair the deficit of legal protection’ for same-sex couples in the country by the 20th June 2013 or same-sex couples would be granted the right to marry. However, in 2009, a court ruled that this would not mean the right to adopt, as straight couples have the right to do.

Last year, senator Edgar Espíndola said changing the law would open the way towards necrophilia, bestiality and paedophilia. He said: “Today in the world there are many countries where bestiality is practically a sexual preference for some, or necrophilia, or paedophilia”.

He added: “We can’t copy those models,” as he lamented the trend towards “modernism” in other countries, reported the El Tiempo newspaper.

Senator Roberto Gerlein sparked outrage with a similar homophobic rant in which he described gay sex as “dirty and revolting”.

Earlier today, France’s Parliament passed a law making same-sex marriage legal.