President Enrique Pena Nieto proposed to legalise same-sex marriage in Mexico on Tuesday, a move that would enshrine on a national level a Supreme Court ruling last year that it was unconstitutional for states to bar such couples from wedding.
If it is approved, Mexico would become the fifth country in Latin America to make same-sex marriage legal. The announcement was criticised by Church officials in Mexico, which is home to the second-largest Catholic population on the planet.
Fr Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico City, urged lawmakers to listen to their “conscience” and oppose the initiative.
“Marriage has some very concrete aims which, of course, two people of the same sex do not fulfill,” Valdemar said, referring to procreation.
He called Pena Nieto’s initiative a “distraction” in a country where “there are more serious issues that should be attended to” such as violence and corruption.
Speaking at an event on the International Day Against Homophobia, Pena Nieto said he signed initiatives that would seek to amend the constitution and the national civil code.
Pena Nieto said he wants to change Article 4 of the constitution to clearly reflect the Supreme Court opinion “to recognise as a human right that people can enter into marriage without any kind of discrimination.”
“That is, for marriages to be carried out without discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or nationality, of disabilities, of social or health conditions, of religion, of gender or sexual preference,” he added.
Pena Nieto’s Twitter page and other government Twitter accounts were changed to include the rainbow colors as he made the announcement.
A two-thirds majority vote in congress is required to amend the constitution. Pena Nieto’s party and allies control about half the seats in both houses, and the measure could also pick up support from the leftist opposition Democratic Revolution Party.
It would then need to be ratified by a simple majority of states before going to the president for his signature.
About 80 per cent of Mexicans are Catholic, though only about 15 per cent to 20 per cent regularly practice the faith, said Andrew Chesnut, chairman of Catholic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.
He added that a recent Pew survey said Mexicans’ acceptance of same-sex marriage and LGBT issues in general closely mirrored views in the United States, where same-sex marriage was legalised by the Supreme Court last year.
The president’s announcement “is just of monumental significance,” Chesnut said. “It really is symbolic of the rapidly waning, eroding influence of the Catholic Church on both politics and the social front.”
Same-sex marriage is already legal in some parts of Mexico such as the capital, the northern state of Coahuila and Quintana Roo state on the Caribbean coast. Adding it to the constitution and the civil code would expand same-sex marriage rights across the country.
Last June, the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for Mexican states to ban same-sex couples from getting married. But the decision did not specifically overturn state laws, meaning couples have had to sue in court in each particular case.
Twenty-three countries around the world have legalised same-sex marriage, according to Pew Research. Argentina became the first in Latin America to do so in 2010, followed by Brazil and Uruguay in 2013 and Colombia earlier this year. Chile allowed same-sex civil unions last year. The US island territory of Puerto Rico also legalised same-sex marriage by executive decree after the US Supreme Court ruling.
“This, in tandem with Colombia, which is still close to about 80 per cent Catholic and is usually kind of looked to as the most devout Catholic nation in Latin America … it’s amazing,” Chesnut said.
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