Baja California moves to ban recognition of same-sex marriages

The unicameral Chamber of Deputies of the Mexican state of Baja
California, where Tijuana is located, voted 18-1 on Sept. 29 to amend the
state constitution to prohibit recognition of same-sex marriages.

Same-sex marriage is legal in Mexico City, and the nation’s Supreme Court
ruled this year that all 31 Mexican states must recognize gay marriages
from the capital city.

As a result, the state legislature’s move could set it on a collision
course with the federal Supreme Court, although some amendment backers
claimed they only want to prevent gay marriages from taking place in Baja.

The amendment, however, does not make that clear. It reads: “The State
recognizes and protects the institution of marriage as a right of society
oriented to guarantee and safeguard the perpetuation of the species and
mutual support between spouses, satisfying this only through the union of
one man with one woman.”

To be valid, the amendment has to be ratified by the city councils of
three of Baja California’s five municipalities — Ensenada, Mexicali,
Rosarito Beach, Tecate and Tijuana. Any municipality that fails to report
the result of its vote within a month of receiving the amendment will be
counted as having approved it. (All towns and areas of Baja California are
within one of the five municipalities, which are somewhat similar to U.S.
counties.)

The only vote cast against the amendment in the Chamber of Deputies came
from PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) Deputy Ana María Fuentes.

“It is our conviction that the basis of human happiness is freedom and the
recognition of rights, that any restriction imposed by one or various
churches or some particular morality that signifies restriction of rights
or persecution of people in the free exercise of their sexual preferences
is profoundly wrong and has more to do with the past and nothing to do
with the future,” she said. “We oppose that the more conservative groups
… want to convert our state into some sort of medieval island with the
double morality that comes with that.”

The legislative chamber was filled with equal numbers of LGBT people and
their opponents. A video of the vote and the chaotic aftermath can be seen
at tinyurl.com/bcgaymat.

By Rex Wockner

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