THE Mexican capital has become the first city in Latin America to legalise same-sex marriage, giving homosexual couples more rights, including allowing them to adopt children.
The bill passed Mexico City’s local assembly by 39 votes to 20 on Monday night, to the cheers of supporters, who yelled: “Yes, we could! Yes, we could!”
Charismatic left-wing mayor Marcelo Ebrard, of the Democratic Revolution Party, is expected t
o sign the measure into law in the next few days.
Mexico City’s left-dominated assembly has made several decisions that have been unpopular elsewhere in this deeply Roman Catholic country, including legalising abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. That sparked a backlash, with the majority of Mexico’s other 32 states enacting legislation declaring that life begins at conception.
The conservative Nation Action Party of Mexican president Felipe Calderon has vowed to challenge the gay marriage law in the courts.
However, homosexuality is increasingly accepted in Mexico, with gay couples openly holding hands in parts of the capital and the annual gay pride parade drawing tens of thousands of people.
The bill calls for a change in the definition of marriage in the city’s civil code. It is currently defined as the union of a man and a woman. The new definition will be “the free uniting of two people”.
The change will allow same-sex couples to adopt children, apply for bank loans together, inherit wealth and be included in the insurance policies of their spouse – rights they were denied under civil unions previously allowed in the city.
“We are so happy,” said Temistocles Villanueva, 23, a film student, who celebrated by kissing his boyfriend outside the city’s assembly.
Only seven countries in the world – Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium – allow gay marriage, as do five US states.
Argentine capital Buenos Aires was the first Latin American city to legalise same-sex civil unions in 2002. Four other Argentine cities later did the same, along with Mexico City in 2007 and some Mexican and Brazilian states. Uruguay alone has legalised civil unions nationwide.
Buenos Aires assembly members introduced a bill for legalising gay marriage in the national congress in October but it has stalled without a vote, and officials there have blocked same-sex weddings because of conflicting judicial rulings.
Many people in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America remain opposed to gay marriage, and the dominant Roman Catholic Church has announced its opposition.
Armando Martinez, president of the College of Catholic Attorneys, said: “They have given Mexicans the most bitter Christmas. They are permitting adoption (by gay couples] and, in one stroke of the pen, have erased the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’.”
But city assembly member Victor Romo, a member of the same party as the mayor, called it a historic day. “For centuries, unjust laws banned marriage between blacks and whites or Indians and Europeans,” he said. “Today, all barriers have disappeared.”
- In: Finance
