April 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homosexual couples are attempting to force the issue of gay “marriage” in Mexico by registering their marriages at the municipal level, sometimes with the connivance of sympathetic politicians, according to reports by the national media.
The method has already worked in the state of Quintana Roo, where two lesbians and two male homosexuals used a loophole in the law to register their unions as “marriages” in 2012. The state's law only referred to “contracting parties” or “couples,” without reference to the sex of the spouses, prompting local officials to permit the “weddings.”
After the state government initially refused to accept the unions as legal “marriages,” the couple took their fight to the state's procurator (which is the equivalent of an attorney general in the United States), and the National Human Rights Commission.
The state government backed off, and now allows any homosexual couple to enter into a civil “marriage.”
In the state of Oaxaca, a similar tactic has been used by homosexual couples who approached municipal officials asking to be “married” in 2011. When they were turned down, they appealed their cases to Mexico's Supreme Court.
Last December, the Court issued a decision ruling that Oaxaca's heterosexual definition of marriage is “unconstitutional,” because it acts “against the auto-determination of people and the right to the free development of their personality.”
Although the decision was made by a subset of the court and is not yet legally binding as a precedent, it requires the state of Oaxaca to perform “marriages” for the three couples who won the suit. On March 31 of this year, the first such “marriage” took place in the state between two women, whose identities have not been revealed.
Now, in the state of Colima, a municipality run by the socialist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has begun to “marry” local homosexual couples in defiance of the governor, Mario Anguiano Moreno, who denies the validity of such unions.
In the municipality of Cuauhtemoc, mayor Indira Vizcaíno Silva has authorized at least five “marriages” between couples of the same sex since February and says she's going to continue the practice.
She says that she has received no official communication from the state government regarding the issue, but is warns that she will put up a legal fight to defend the “marriages” she has granted.
Governor Anguiano Moreno has stated that he might have recourse to the legislature to vote on the matter.
“I'm convinced that this is a good time to open the discussion with the people regarding this topic, and I'm sure that legislators are going to take into account the opinion of the majority so that they can, if necessary, make adaptations or a reformation of the legal ordinances,” he told reporters recently.
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Such a vote would be likely to result in a defeat for same-sex “marriages,” given the state's strongly conservative and Catholic bent. However, if the Supreme Court's 2012 ruling is upheld in future disputes, homosexual “marriage” is likely to be imposed not only in Colima, but throughout Mexico.
The first couple to be granted a “marriage” by the municipality of Cuauhtemoc, who have only given their first names, Abraham and Jose, have told the press that they are “happy because this is an important advance from the legal standpoint, above all to vindicate our rights like any couple: social security, a guaranteed mortgage, pensions…” They also say they might want to adopt children in the future.
The registrar in Cuauhtemoc says the municipality has received dozens of additional requests for such “marriages,” both from within Colima and from other states.