The vote comes two days after 200,000 religious Christians held a rally against granting same-sex couples any sort of legal rights. As the largest anti-gay rally in the history of the US commonwealth, the gathering portrayed the immense opposition gay couples continue to face in Puerto Rico.

Although some lawmakers support granting gay couples with certain legal rights, many public figures remain starkly opposed to the idea. The Supreme Court decision came in response to a woman’s eight-year-long attempt to adopt a 12-year-old girl that her partner had given birth to through in vitro fertilization. Even though the woman’s girlfriend was the mother of the girl, the court upheld ...