By TONY SMITH
The Associated Press
5/14/01 1:40 AM

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- After six years in limbo, legislation is being put to a vote in Congress this week that would make Brazil the first Latin American country to allow same-sex unions.

Gay rights activists hope the legislation, which would put Brazil on par with socially liberal France, Sweden or Australia, will help end violence toward homosexuals here. Despite Brazil's high-profile annual Carnival celebration of sexual hedonism, the reality for gay men and lesbians is different and dangerous.

One gay rights group, Gay Group Bahia, lists 130 gay killings last year, most of which have gone unsolved. Three homosexuals were killed with gunshots and stab wounds last week in the small town of Limeiro, and their bodies then were repeatedly run over by a car.

Group president Luiz Mott calls Brazil "the undisputed world champion in gay murders."

"I'm not very optimistic about the vote," Mott said. "Although this time there seems to be more mobilization on our part than previously and less mobilization by our enemies."

The bill, originally drafted in 1995 by Sao Paulo's left-leaning Mayor Marta Suplicy -- then a congresswoman -- stops short of institutionalizing full-fledged gay marriages, but would extend benefits such as social security and health plans to same-sex partners and allow them to transfer property rights.

The legislation is due to be voted on by Congress' lower house by midweek. If passed, it would then need approval by the Senate and President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

"If it passes, it will be a huge victory not just for gays in Brazil, but for gays all over Latin America," said James Green, associate professor at California State University and author of "Beyond Carnival," a book that paints Brazil as often hostile to gays.

The bill faces stiff opposition from the Roman Catholic clergy and an increasingly powerful lobby of evangelical Christian lawmakers and other conservative deputies.

"Sexuality is ordained for conjugal love between a man and a woman that is between spouses," Bishop Filippo Santoro of the archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro said in a letter urging the state's 46 deputies to vote against the bill, which he said "contradicts the laws of nature."

Severino Cavalcanti, the Chamber's first secretary and a leading opponent of the bill, called it "another absurd proposal made by someone who has never shown concern for the Brazilian family."

The powerful National Council of Pastors, which counts 50,000 members across the world's most populous Roman Catholic country, says it will actively campaign against the re-election of any deputy voting for the bill.

Congress has repeatedly postponed voting on the law over the past six years and, in an attempt to garner broader support, has watered it down to include any kind of "same-sex partner" such as a sister or a grandfather sharing a household.

"It's no longer the most up-to-date law," said activist Andre Fischer. "But it is important to show public opinion here that the rights of gays and lesbians are being recognized and respected."