The Amerindians are the original inhabitants of the Americas and their descendants. In 1492 , the explorer Christopher Columbus expects to meet the West Indies as he has just landed in America. Because of this error, we continue to use the term “Indians” to refer to people of the New World . With the work of the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in the early xvi ^th century , there was talk of “Americas”, in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci  , its inhabitants become the “American Indians” to distinguish populations of India .

In the absence of consensus that makes name sometimes used expressions “First Nations” or “first peoples”. The phrase “Red Indians” is old and is never used in the United Stateswhen we prefer the terms Native Americans (Native Americans), Native Peoples (Original Peoples), American Indians (Native Americans ), First Nations (First Nations), Aboriginal Peoples (Indigenous Peoples), Indigenous Peoples of America (American indigenous peoples), Amerindians (Indians) or Amerinds  , but none is really satisfactory because of the diversity of these people and because they reject them and prefer to use their name or tribe nation ^{N 1} .

The arrival of Europeans in North America from the XVI ^th century caused a major impact on Native Americans: their number collapsed due to disease, war and abuse. Their lifestyle and culture suffered mutations. With the advance of the frontier and the settlement of white Americans, they lost the majority of their territory, were forced to integrate reserves . Their demographic, social and economic ceased to deteriorate. Since the 1970s , the Native American community is experiencing a certain revival: their population is increasing, poverty is declining slowly, revive traditions. If the Indians are now citizens in their own right, they are still lagging behind the U.S. development.

The achievement of same-sex marriage in Spain in 2005 cannot be understood without acknowledging recent transformations in the institution of the family and the role played by women in Spanish society. Spanish families have experienced considerable changes due to women’s greater incorporation into the paid labour force. Traditional gender values imposed during the Franco regime – exhorting girls to aim to be good mothers and wives whilst giving boys a more rounded education – have given way to arguably more egalitarian family relationships (Talavera Ferna´ ndez, 2001, p. 10). Over time, women are becoming more economically independent, and possess increasing control over maternity and birth control.

The concept of the ‘family’ is crucial for understanding not only Spanish history, but also the framework of our rights and struggles. The Spanish state relies on the family as a social and economic institution in which the social, economic and legal protection of families is fixed. But the Constitution does not define family in terms of marriage; instead family is vaguely defined (Art. 39), and it is broader than heterosexual marriage (Art. 32). According to the Centre for Sociological Research (C.I.S.) survey of 2004, ‘family’ is the institution that Spanish citizens value the most, over others like employment, politics, leisure, friends, money or religion.

Therefore, it is not surprising that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (L.G.B.T.) rights are constructed by activists and policymakers within this framework. The struggle is not to promote individual civil rights but, rather, to obtain recognition of L.G.B.T. families and relationships by the state. Most of the debates about marriage and partnerships have been linked to adoption and the ‘capabilities’ of L.G.B.T. people as parents. Against this, the Catholic Church and the Conservative Party (P.P.) have promoted the idea of traditional family as the true source of citizenship, portraying L.G.B.T. rights – along with divorce and feminist struggles – as a source of instability, an attempt to break Spanish society…