- Title: MEXICO: Gays line up for first same-sex marriages
- Date: 5th March 2010
- Summary: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (MARCH 4, 2010) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF CIVIL REGISTRY OFFICE WOMAN FLYING GAY PRIDE RAINBOW FLAG GAY COUPLES WALKING INTO REGISTRY OFFICE VARIOUS OF GAY COUPLE SIGNING FORMS TO WED GAY COUPLE KISSING (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) JAVIER GUTIERREZ, SAYING: "We are celebrating our love, our pact, we are celebrating the exclusion from the state and the fact
- Embargoed: 20th March 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Mexico
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVAEA96G9M332CUI3YKIA9TJUULH
- Story Text: Gay couples lined up in the Mexican capital on Thursday (March 4) to get a date to tie the knot as the city opened the door to same-sex marriages.
The law, now in effect after being approved by the city's mainly left-wing legislature in December, goes beyond current law allowing same-sex civil unions to give gay couples the same marriage rights as straight couples, including adoption.
Two Argentine men wed in Latin America's first same-sex marriage in 2009.
Uruguay allows same-sex unions but Mexico City is the first place to include gay couples within existing marriage laws.
"We are celebrating our love, our pact, we are celebrating the exclusion from the state and the fact we won social rights as a couple within marriage. We are very happy because of that. It's a personal thing but also political. Personal issues become political," said Javier Gutierrez.
Gutierrez was among the first couple arriving at civil registries with birth certificates and other documents they need to submit to get married as soon as next week.
The Mexican capital has become a bastion of liberal policies in the largely conservative nation, which has the world's second-biggest Catholic population after Brazil.
Since winning control of the Mexico City government in the late 1990s, Mexico's main left-wing party has brought in pensions for the elderly and better schools for the poor while also moving to make divorce easier, decriminalize abortion and allow terminally ill patients to refuse treatment.
The Catholic Church has slammed the same-sex marriage law, with the country's top churchman, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, saying it was "perverse" and an attack on the family.
Conservative President Felipe Calderon has also challenged the law, filing a suit with the Supreme Court to overturn it on the grounds marriage should be between a man and a woman. The court has not yet decided whether to take up the case.
Partners Daniel Ramos and Temistocle Villanueva said the law would give them more opportunities to buy a home.
"Relief because we won't have to fight against social security and merging our mortgages in order to buy a home, all those problems will be resolved," said Ramos.
"Also security as a couple and for the future," added Villanueva.
Thirty-four-year-old Ema Villanueva, who is raising a 5-year-old daughter with her partner Janice Alva was equally excited.
"We have fought so hard to get this, and now that it is a reality, it seems like a dream," she said.
Proponents of gay marriage cite dozens of studies that say children raised by same-sex couples are at no disadvantage to peers from traditional families. Some still fear a backlash, however, especially outside the capital. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None