The Senate’s final approval Wednesday makes Uruguay the first country in Latin America to allow gay and lesbian couples the opportunity to adopt.

The executive branch now will decide when the law takes effect. The change is supported by socialist President Tabare Vazquez’s Broad Front coalition, while the Roman Catholic Church has voiced strong disapproval.

Under Vazquez, Uruguay already legalized gay civil unions and ended a ban on homosexuals in the military.

The law gives judges less say over adoptions and shifts decision making to the national Institute of the Children and Adolescents.

Same- and opposite-sex couples who apply soon will receive their certificates of domestic partnership on Oct. 1.

That’s the day a new state law goes into effect extending rights similar to those held by married couples to cohabitating couples, whether gay or straight, who register with the secretary of state’s office.

Applications will be accepted at Secretary of State Ross Miller’s office starting Monday. There is a $50 fee, and the applications must be notarized.

Rickard, 61, would have preferred to keep working at San Jose State University and sponsor her partner, Karin Bogliolo, for residency in the United States, just as heterosexual couples can. But U.S. law does not allow for that.

“If you’re going to have a system that’s designed to keep families together, it should focus on keeping families together,” Rickard said.

That could soon change, as more than 100 lawmakers in the House and about 20 in the Senate have signed onto bills that would add the United States to the 19 countries that already recognize same-sex couples for immigration purposes.

Gay rights groups are encouraged that President Barack Obama has signaled that he would like to include couples like Rickard and Bogliolo in the bills.

“In many ways, the stars are aligning to move this forward as part of a comprehensive bill,” said Steve Ralls, communications director for the advocacy group Immigration Equality. “That’s an opportunity we didn’t have years ago.”

The provisions concerning same-sex couples are part of legislation that would increase the number of visas provided to family members of people already in the United States legally.

The long-standing fight over the country’s estimated 36,000 same sex couples of two nationalities is a small but emotional part of the debate over immigration reform. But including same-sex couples in the mix could make it harder to pass an immigration overhaul.

A key ally in past immigration fights, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said it would not support a measure that has a same-sex provision.

Writing to Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., the organization said the provision would “erode the institution of marriage and family by according marriage-like immigration benefits to same sex relationships.”

Other groups say that it is often difficult to verify the validity of same-sex relationships if one of the partners comes from a country that does not recognize or document same-sex unions.

Honda, lead author of the “Reuniting Families Act,” credited Rickard, one of his constituents, for bringing the issue to his attention. Honda said his Japanese heritage contributed to his taking a closer look at protecting same-sex couples through an overhaul of the nation’s immigration law.

Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps during the fallout from Pearl Harbor and redefined as persons of enemy alien ancestry, Honda said.

“The lack of political leadership played a big part in what happened to us,” Honda said. “And that’s true in almost every civil rights case.”

Another California resident, Shirley Tan, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month in favor of a comparable bill.

Tan has been in California since arriving on a visitor’s visa in 1989. She applied for asylum in 1995 because she was afraid of a cousin in the Philippines who had killed her mother and sister and critically wounded her.

She was unaware the petition had been denied until federal agents took her away in handcuffs at the end of January. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California has since sponsored a bill that allows Tan to stay in the U.S. until the current session of Congress ends in late 2010.

“I have a partner who is a U.S. citizen, and two beautiful children who are also U.S. citizens, but not one of them can petition for me to remain in the United States with them,” Tan said.

The NAACP and the American Bar Association also spoke in favor of including “permanent partners” as part of an immigration bill, saying that current law amounts to discrimination.

Permanent partner is defined in proposed legislation as an individual 18 or older who is “in a committed, intimate relationship with another individual 18 or older in which both individuals intend a lifelong commitment.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said he doubted the legislation would pass this Congress. He said it amounts to a redefinition of marriage and would give people more opportunities to come into the United States fraudulently.

“It seems we would be creating a special preference and benefit for a category of immigrants based on a relationship that’s not recognized by federal law and overwhelmingly by most states,” Sessions said.

Rickard said she may reluctantly move to Great Britain or another country when her partner’s current travel visa expires in November. Bogliolo, however, said she would prefer to live in the U.S. for her partner’s sake.

“Judy has elderly parents and family here and she’s also lived here all her life whereas I’ve lived in many different countries,” Bogliolo said. “I think Judy would find it very difficult after a whole life in San Jose to move over to Europe, so I decided if at all possible that I would move over here.”

Some couples from neighboring states where voters have passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage plan to move to Iowa so their unions will be recognized.

“It’s a whole different world when you cross the river,” said Troy Fienhold-Haasis of Omaha, Neb., who plans to move with his partner, Jason, across the Missouri River to Council Bluffs, Iowa, this fall.

Fienhold-Haasis said the decision to move is about more than just tax and cost-of-living issues – though those factored heavily into the couple’s decision. When he had emergency gall bladder surgery last year, Fienhold-Haasis said he worried his partner wouldn’t be able to see him in the hospital.

“In Iowa, with a marriage, those questions are taken care of,” he said.

The couple plans to apply for a marriage license in Pottawattamie County, where more Nebraskans than Iowans sought same-sex marriage applications in the first three days they were available. Twenty-three of the 42 applications Monday through Wednesday came from Nebraska, and one was mailed in from Oklahoma.

The story was similar in other counties at the state’s edges. On Monday and Tuesday, five of the 14 Dubuque County applications came from couples in nearby Wisconsin, and 12 of the 38 applications in Scott County came from across the Mississippi River in Illinois. Both applications filed Monday in Worth County were from Minnesotans, and Missouri couples filed all four applications that day in Decatur County.

Out-of-staters accounted for only five of the 95 applications received Monday through Wednesday in central Polk County, which includes Des Moines.

One Republican legislator from the Scott County community of Bettendorf said the influx from other states was nothing to celebrate.

“I feel sorry for those states where they will be going to,” said state Sen. David Hartsuch. “In those states, many of them have made their will known and … protect traditional marriage.”

Four of Iowa’s six neighbors – Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin – have approved constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.

“At this point, the Supreme Court of Iowa is imposing its will on other states,” Hartsuch said, adding that the issue will be a galvanizing point for Republicans in the elections next fall.

But Fienhold-Haasis said Nebraska and other border states are losing out.

“One state is going to get tax dollars and one state is losing them,” he said.

The Iowa Supreme Court on April 3 upheld a lower court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and woman. The decision took effect Monday, prompting a flood of applications from same-sex couples. Some couples got judges to waive the state’s three-day waiting period and were married in front of government offices.

“You can’t undervalue the spiritual value of it,” said Jim Kieffer, who moved to Council Bluffs with his partner in March, in part due to a belief that Iowa would legalize gay marriage. They plan to get married next week.

Kieffer, formerly of Omaha, said concerns about inheritance taxes and health care decisions for his partner helped him make up his mind.

“Hetero couples don’t have to worry about that,” Kieffer said.

Gay and lesbian couples in other Midwestern states are encouraged by Iowa’s decision, even if they don’t plan to move there, said Katie Belanger, legislative director for the gay-rights advocacy group FAIR Wisconsin.

Massachusetts and Connecticut allow gay marriage, and Vermont has passed a law that will take effect in September, but the decision in Iowa is more important to Midwesterners, she said.

“It’s not just a state on the coast with a reputation for being extremely liberal and progressive. They’re just like the people in Wisconsin,” Belanger said.

Melanie Rexroad is hoping gay-marriage rights spread in the region.

The 36-year-old and her partner, Samantha Gillen, had twins two years ago in Kentucky, but had decided before the boys were born to move to Minneapolis. Kentucky doesn’t allow same-sex parental adoption, and Rexroad wanted to find a more “diverse” community.

Rexroad said she would rather wait for Minnesota to allow same-sex marriage than pick up her life once more.

“We shouldn’t have to keep moving to obtain equal rights,” Rexroad said. “I believe it can happen here.”

The Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 – known as WRERA – contains technical corrections to the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

The Pension Protection Act, or PPA, made it possible for employers to allow any non-spouse beneficiary of an employee’s retirement plan—including an employee’s same-sex partner—to roll inherited retirement benefits directly to an individual retirement account and avoid immediate taxation.

WRERA requires that all employers provide this rollover opportunity to non-spouse beneficiaries.

“This legislation secures much-needed protection for lesbian and gay couples,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.

“Our community faces unique challenges in preparing for retirement because we are denied Social Security spousal and survivor benefits. Protecting our hard-earned retirement savings is even more crucial to us, and until now, the tax code made it that much harder.”

Before 2007, partners who inherited retirement plan savings typically faced immediate taxation on inherited benefits, unlike opposite-sex spouses, who could roll savings over to an IRA with no tax penalty.

Under the PPA, which came into effect in 2007, qualifying plans could permit any non-spouse beneficiary—including a domestic partner, parent or sibling—to roll over inherited retirement benefits paid as a lump sum directly to an IRA. Qualifying plans include defined benefit plans pensions, 401K plans, employee stock ownership plans, profit-sharing plans, money purchase plans, 403B plans and governmental 457B plans.

But the provision was subsequently interpreted to be optional for employers, meaning each company had to affirmatively adopt this protection for partners under each qualifying plan.

Under the WRERA, which takes effect in January 2010, all qualifying plans that pay lump sum benefits to non-spouse beneficiaries are required to provide the rollover opportunity.

“This is progress toward eliminating the more than 1,000 inequities that our families face under federal law,” said Solmonese.

He also called on employers to make the rollover provision available as quickly as possible and not wait for the 2010 deadline. Solmonese said that LGBT workers should ensure their partners and children are designated as beneficiaries.