Mexico City, June 16 (teleSUR-RHC)-- After months of rulings that say restricting marriage to heterosexual couples is discriminatory, the Mexican Supreme Court has legalized same-sex matrimonies nationwide. Though not yet enshrined into law, the effect of the numerous rulings in favor of equal marriage has had the same effect.
At the end of last week, the Supreme Court published in the weekly judicial paper (Semanario Judicial de la Federación) that the new legislation is obligatory across the nation, and “trying to link the requirements of marriage to sexual preferences of those who can enter the matrimonial institution with procreation is discriminatory, and unjustifiably excludes marriage access to homosexual partners that are situated in similar conditions to heterosexual partners.”
Victor Manuel Aguirre, 43, and Victor Fernando Urias, 38, were, with the help of the supreme court the first homosexual couple to marry in Baja California. “With many setbacks, love triumphed after all,” Aguirre told the New York Times.
The outcome puts Mexico ahead of the United States in terms of LGBT rights, where equal marriage is only legal in a limited number of states, and marks it as a trailblazer in Latin America where the practice is only legal in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.
The National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination called the news a “historical advance.” In 2009 same-sex civil partnerships were passed in Mexico City, Coahuila and Quintana Roo.
