Gay unions legalized for first time in Mexico

[U2Girl1978]

By Gunther Hamm

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico City approved homosexual civil unions on Thursday, legalizing gay partnerships for the first time in the world's second-largest Roman Catholic nation.

The capital's municipal assembly, controlled by left-wing legislators, voted for the measure 43-17 as hundreds of rival protesters demonstrated noisily outside the building.

The move paves the way for same-sex civil unions in the city of 8.6 million people early next year.

The local congress in the northern state of Coahuila, bordering Texas, began debating a similar plan this week to legalize gay unions.

"These reforms are going to cause a snowball effect that no one will be able to stop," said David Sanchez of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution, one of the few openly gay national congressmen.

The initiatives in Mexico City and Coahuila are modeled on France's civil code and call for property, pension, inheritance and even co-parenting rights. But they stop short of allowing full marriage or adoption of children.

In 2002, the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires legalized same-sex unions, a move hailed as a first in Latin America.

Outside the assembly hall, gay activists with rainbow-color flags and Christian opponents of the law exchanged barbs.

"It's anti-natural. They are descending into something that is against humanity. Societies have always fallen into decadence when there has been homosexuality and disruption in the family," said protester Humberto Muniz.

Arturo Valadez, 47, a gay musical composer dressed in a monk outfit who has been with his partner for five years, said the assembly's vote was a blow to a socially conservative bastion.

"It's a first step in an ultra-Catholic society that is badly informed and manipulated by right-wing groups and many in the media," he said.

Authorities in Mexico's powerful Catholic Church have condemned gay unions. Some 90 percent of Mexico's 107 million people are Catholics and conservative evangelical groups are also winning adherents. Only Brazil has more Catholics.

Gay union backers say the law does not undermine traditional marriage. They call it a legal contract between two individuals in a homosexual, heterosexual or even platonic relationship.

A spokesman for President Vicente Fox, a practicing Catholic, declined to comment on the Mexico City vote, saying it was a matter for local authorities.

 

[deep]

Maybe W and the GOP should move that boarder fence down to Mexico City. We don't need anymore sinners.

 

[redhotswami]

 

[BrownEyedBoy]

I was very suprised to hear this. I'm impressed.

 

[BVS]

"See? Billy Idol get's it, why can't she?"

 

[anitram]

Well 2/3 NAFTA countries got it right!

 

[Bluer White]

I'm glad that Mexico City held an actual vote. A legitimate outcome - good for them. What about Massachusetts? Will the Mass Legislature hold a vote? Where does Deval Patrick stand?

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Nov10/0,4670,GayMarriage,00.html

 

[vaz02]

Congrats to mexico , maybe true equality can be the buzz word of the 21st century.

 

[Irvine511]

I'm glad that Mexico City held an actual vote. A legitimate outcome - good for them. What about Massachusetts? Will the Mass Legislature hold a vote? Where does Deval Patrick stand?

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Nov10/0,4670,GayMarriage,00.html

yes, because it's your opinion that should decide whether or not i am entitled to the same rights as you. civil rights have always been about popularity contests.

majority rules ... majority RULES!

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Deval Patrick supports gay marriage

Mitt Romney wants a vote because it suits his political aspirations-Mitt and a few desperate stragglers who insist on making it an issue. The majority of people in MA DO NOT CARE and support gay marriage and do not need or want to vote on it.

 

[Bluer White]

Romney wants a vote because it suits his political aspirations-Mitt and a few desperate stragglers who insist on making it an issue. The majority of people in MA DO NOT CARE and support gay marriage and do not need or want to vote on it.

It does support Romney's interests in the presidency. His position is similiar to John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Evan Bayh, Wes Clark, Barak Obama, and John Kerry. But I'm not really interested in that sort of inside baseball right now.

170,000 petitioners cared enough for the Legislature to vote on it, and ultimately for the people to vote on the issue in 2008.

Massachusetts' Legislature had the Constitutional obligation to take up this amendment, and 109 lawmakers chose to go into "recess" instead. The vote was constitutionally required.

 

[Varitek]

It does support Romney's interests in the presidency. His position is similiar to John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Evan Bayh, Wes Clark, Barak Obama, and John Kerry. But I'm not really interested in that sort of inside baseball right now.

170,000 petitioners cared enough for the Legislature to vote on it, and ultimately for the people to vote on the issue in 2008.

Massachusetts' Legislature had the Constitutional obligation to take up this amendment, and 109 lawmakers chose to go into "recess" instead. The vote was constitutionally required.

Can we also bring up, in addition to the fact that civil rights shouldn't be put to a vote, that the groups collecting these signitures have in the past been shown to use very dubious (read: illegal and unethical) methods?

 

[Bluer White]

the groups collecting these signatures have in the past been shown to use very dubious (read: illegal and unethical) methods?

Could you please elaborate?

Also, how many of the 170,000 signatures would you consider to be illegitimate?

 

[anitram]

If everything was up to a vote, Rosa Parks would probably still be at the back of that bus.

 

[maycocksean]

If everything was up to a vote, Rosa Parks would probably still be at the back of that bus.

Mercy.

 

[BVS]

If everything was up to a vote, Rosa Parks would probably still be at the back of that bus.

I love your posts

 

[vaz02]

If everything was up to a vote, Rosa Parks would probably still be at the back of that bus.

Isnt she dead now ?

I studied her in History class and it was remarkable.

 

[yolland]

Yeah, Rosa Parks died last year.

It's certainly true that most of the freedoms secured by the Civil Rights Movement were not won by putting them up for a vote at the local or state level, however, many of them were subjected to a vote federally (the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, Voting Rights Act of 1965, 24th Amendment etc.). Obviously the federal government had to be nudged to vote on these (and even then enforcing them in the South required calling in the National Guard more than once), but nonetheless, they did still have to be voted on. In the case of federal guarantees for same-sex unions or marriages, the Defense of Marriage Act (1996) is currently standing in the way of Congress taking a stance on this issue--same-sex marriage is federally framed at this point as a question for states to decide.

The Civil Rights Movement also secured many victories through Supreme Court rulings (Brown v. Board of Education, Boynton v. Virginia, upholding Browder v. Gary--which resulted from the Montgomery Bus Boycott that Parks inaugurated), but again in the case of same-sex unions, the precedent set by Baker v. Nelson (1971; appeal dismissed by the Supreme Court 1972) is currently standing in the way of SCOTUS taking a postion on state court rulings on this issue.

So I can kind of see where both sides are coming from here--current federal law leaves the question of how to handle same-sex unions up to the states, and in the apparent absence of federal political will to change this situation via Congressional legislation or Supreme Court litigation, all that really leaves open is the state-level route. Perhaps the don't-put-it-to-a-vote argument simply means to say that state court litigation is the best way to go? I'm inclined to agree with that assessment, but given how many rights inherent in (opposite-sex) marriage pertain to federal law, it's hard to imagine that putting it up to a vote at the federal level isn't going to be necessary at some point.

 

[Varitek]

Could you please elaborate?

Also, how many of the 170,000 signatures would you consider to be illegitimate?

I don't consider myself qualified to make an estimate of a number, but would you like me to cite a number less than 105k so you can come back and say the threshold was 65k? Anyway, only 130k or so of those signitures were validated; I hate when people use the higher number though many times it contains duplicates, non-residents, etc.

As for a source, you should look into the work done by KnowThyNeighbor and MassEquality on the legitimacy of the petitioners' methods.

 

[anitram]

It's certainly true that most of the freedoms secured by the Civil Rights Movement were not won by putting them up for a vote at the local or state level, however, many of them were subjected to a vote federally (the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, Voting Rights Act of 1965, 24th Amendment etc.).

Yes, but these votes came after (in some instances up to 10-15 YEARS) the Supreme Court "intervened" and participated in judicial review. That is an incredibly important, underlying point here. The judiciary's rulings are what gave rise to the subsequent votes, and not the other way around, which is what is being advocated on this thread.

 

[yolland]

As a point of strategy I agree, but it isn't true that all provisions covered by Civil Rights legislation had already been covered by judicial review. To take just one example, the Supreme Court case which declared the segregation of privately owned public accommodations unconstitutional--Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964)--was actually brought in response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned such segregation. (Brown v. Board of Education, by contrast, applied only to public schools.) This is why I was saying federal legislation will surely be necessary at some point. But as a general principle, I agree that litigation will be necessary to get the process started.

 

[anitram]

But what lead to the enactment of that Act? The judiciary certainly paved the way, so you can't look at individual cases brought in response to the Act without then considering what lead to the Act being passed in the first place. I know you can probably go endlessly like his - how far back do we go?

I just don't believe that constitutional issues should be up for a majority vote. The courts are the best arbiters of what laws are constitutional, not the general public. A good example is how gay marriage came to be accepted in Canada: it was the Supreme Court ruling that largely legitimized the issue in the eyes of the public so that the legislatures acted in response, and not the other way around.

 

[Ormus]

Let's not forget that the foundations for civil rights, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, were basically only passed through blackmail against the former Confederate states. In order for them to be readmitted into the union, they had to be ratified by each state.

So, basically, the American civil rights movement has been based on blackmail and "judicial activism." If it were up to a vote, we'd still have slavery in this country.

 

[yolland]

A good example is how gay marriage came to be accepted in Canada: it was the Supreme Court ruling that largely legitimized the issue in the eyes of the public so that the legislatures acted in response, and not the other way around.

Yeah, but was there an equivalent precedent to Baker v. Nelson that had to be overturned first? That's such a point-specific ruling; it's not really comparable to something like Plessy v. Ferguson which could be (and was) chipped away at piece by piece over time. I'm guessing that marriage law is much more of a federal affair to begin with in Canada than it is here, and that's a big part of the problem.

I don't know that I'm really arguing for anything different than you are in the big picture, but I guess I'm a lot less optimistic about the prospect for federal-level change--whether through SCOTUS or Congress--at this point.