It is the culmination of 13 years of struggle for the LGBT community in Mexico. Mexico City (the capital) was the first in 2009 to allow same-sex marriage. But it remained illegal in the other provinces of this country of 130 million inhabitants. In 2015, the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body in the country, had implicitly authorized marriage for all: by considering that limiting marriage to the union of two people of different sex was an infringement of human rights. But it took the last few weeks to see legalization takes place throughout the territory, with seven successive votes, province by province. Until the last two, Guerrero, a southern province the day before yesterday; then Tamaulipas on the North-East coast of the country, near the American Texas, where the vote of the local Parliament took place Wednesday evening October 26.
But this final vote on the “matrimonio igualatario” as it is called in Mexico did not go smoothly. The subject remains very sensitive. In this very practicing country, it arouses the opposition of many religious groups, Catholics as well as evangelical Protestants. Several of them also burst in during the session of the local Parliament of Tamaulipas, to try to prevent the vote. The motion, moreover presented by an elected Christian Democrat (a paradox) was finally adopted by 23 votes for, 12 against. And this vote modifies article 132 of the Civil Code on marriage, with immediate effect. In five provinces of the country, the legalization of homosexual union has yet to be formally incorporated into law. But we can still say that now marriage for all is legal throughout Mexico. Associations for the defense of LGBT rights are very satisfied.
And so Mexico joins the now long list of Latin American countries that have legalized marriage for all. Latin America is becoming, along with Europe, the continent of progress for the rights of the LGBT community. 34 countries in the world now recognize marriage for all, including 15 in Europe and 9 in Latin America. The last to have taken this decision, before Mexico, was Cuba, at the end of September during a referendum on the complete reform of the Family Code, approved with 66% of the vote. In December last year, Chile also legalized marriage for all and also allowed adoption for married gay couples. After a double vote of the Senate and the Assembly. And before, in recent years Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Costa Rica, had taken the same path. They are therefore also the most populated countries in Latin America. And it is all the more spectacular that these are countries where, as in Mexico, religious practice remains strong.