Costa Rica Votes in Runoff Fought Over Homosexual Rights

Polls opened on Easter Sunday for a vote on whether conservative Christian singer Fabricio Alvarado Munoz can capture Costa Rica’s presidency, a result that would mark a sharp turn from the current government’s embrace of gay rights.

Best known for religious dance songs and ballads, the 43-year-old former TV journalist faces the center-left ruling party candidate Carlos Alvarado Quesada, 38, in a tight race fought over a court ruling ordering the country to allow same-sex marriage.

The two Alvarados, who are not related, took opposing positions on the January decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, an influential regional body based in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose.

Polls opened at 6 a.m. local time, with results expected Sunday evening.

Fabricio, as supporters call him, called it an affront to traditional values and sovereignty in the Central American nation. Threatening to remove the country from the court’s jurisdiction, he shot from the margins to the top of a 13-candidate field, and won the first round of voting in February.

“We’re united… in defending life and family, but also to defend ethics and transparency and the battle against corruption,” the singer, who is a member of the Protestant Pentecostal movement, said on the eve of Sunday’s vote in a video appeal to Catholics, who account for more than six out 10 people in the country, seeking to forge…