Uruguay allows same-sex adoption

Same-sex couples in Uruguay will be able to adopt children following the approval of a controversial bill by the country's senate.

The move means Uruguay becomes the first Latin American country to allow gay couples the chance to adopt.

Some 17 of 23 senators voted in favour of the new legislation, AFP reports.

The change - opposed by the Catholic Church - is the latest in a series of liberalising measures supported by left-wing President Tabare Vazquez.

The archbishop of Montevideo, Nicolas Cotugno, said before the vote that it would be a "serious error to accept the adoption of children by homosexual couples".

"It's not about religion, philosophy or sociology. It's something which is mainly about the respect of human nature itself," he said in a statement quoted by AFP.