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Mexico City Votes to Legalize Gay Marriage

The BBC reports here on the vote by Mexico City's leftist city legislature to legalize gay marriage. The mayor is widely expected to sign the bill. The language changes the definition of marriage from a relationship between a man and woman to "the free uniting of two people". The bill passed 39 to 20 with five abstentions.

Gay rights has been an increasingly popular issue in Mexico's capitol recently, with gay pride parades drawing thousands, according to the Associated Press report in the Boston Globe on the vote. The bill was urged in order to provide same-sex couples equal rights with heterosexual couples in such matters as benefits, adoption, bank loans and inheritance, which civil unions, already allowed in Mexico City, failed to provide. According to the Globe version of the AP report:

Only seven countries allow gay marriages: Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. In the United States, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Iowa permit same-sex marriage.

Argentina?s capital became the first Latin American city to legalize same-sex civil unions in 2002. Four other Argentine cities later did the same, as did Mexico City in 2007 and some Mexican and Brazilian states. Uruguay alone has legalized civil unions nationwide.

Both articles report plans from the opposition party, which is the majority nationally to challenge the vote, and opposition from conservative groups and Catholic church spokesmen. But the BBC report notes that:

A handful of cities in Argentina, Ecuador and Colombia permit gay unions.

Uruguay alone has legalised civil unions nationwide and allowed same-sex couples to adopt children.

Last month, an Argentinean court narrowly blocked what would been the continent's first gay marriage.

In a last-minute challenge, a court referred the case to the country's Supreme Court, which is due to rule on the issue.

This is worth watching. The image is of local gay rights activists celebrating the vote in Mexico City, from the Boston Globe.

Full post as published by Out of the Jungle on December 22, 2009 (boomark / email).