Two glowing brides in matching white gowns and four other same-sex couples made history in Mexico City on Thursday as they wed under Latin America’s first law that explicitly approves gay marriage.
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard was a guest of honor at the weddings of Judith Vazquez and Lol Kin Castaneda and the other couples who tied the knot in a city building, despite harsh criticism from the Roman Catholic Church and a campaign against the measure by Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s conservative National Action Party.
Vazquez, a 45-year-old small-business owner, and Castaneda, a 33-year-old psychologist, signed and put their thumb print on the official documents.
Then they sealed their union with a kiss amid cheers from family and friends gathered in the colonial-era building’s courtyard, decorated with calla lilies, banners with the colors of Mexico’s flag and a sign that read: “Tolerance, Liberty, Equality, Solidarity.”
“This is the mark of freedom,” Vazquez said, raising her thumb.
Vazquez said she and Castaneda have considered themselves married ever since they moved in together six years ago.
“The difference today is that the state will recognize it,” she said while getting her hair done at home before the wedding. “This is a victory for all ... For us this is a day of celebration.”
Mexico City’s legislature passed the first law explicitly giving gay marriages the same status as heterosexual ones in December. The legislation also allows same-sex couples to adopt children.
For now, the law applies only to residents of Mexico City, though a marriage performed in one state must be recognized in the rest of the country.
“Today is a historic day in Mexico City,” said Judge Hegel Cortes, who officiated the weddings. “With the signing of these marriage certificates, we leave behind the traditional idea of a family and we allow for two people, regardless of sexual orientation, to get married.”
Thursday’s weddings are not the first of their kind in Latin America, although they are the first approved under legislative authority.
In December, two Argentine men were wed in a civil ceremony by a sympathetic governor and with court approval. Interpretations vary, however, on whether Argentine law allows same-sex unions, and the question is now before that country’s Supreme Court.
Argentina’s Constitution is silent on whether marriage must be between a man and a woman, effectively leaving the matter to provincial officials. A law specifically legalizing gay marriage has stalled in Congress since October.
The new law in Mexico’s capital district, which is home to roughly 8 million people, has been closely watched in the US, where same-sex marriage is legal in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire.
In New York, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force spokesman Pedro Julio Serrano cheered the milestone.
“People in the United States can look up to Mexico City and see a courageous legislature taking a stand,” Serrano said.
“It’s a model to follow,” he said.
Federal prosecutors are attempting to overturn the law, which Mexico City lawmakers argue simply gives same-sex couples the rights that heterosexual couples have regarding social security and other benefits.
The Catholic Church has hotly criticized the law, especially its provision letting same-sex couples adopt children — something several couples said they were considering.
On Thursday, the Archdiocese of Mexico accused the city government of approving a “perverse and immoral law.”
“It may be legal, but it will never be moral,” spokesman Hugo Valdemar Romero said in a statement.
Outside the city building, about two dozen protesters held banners that read “one man plus one woman equals marriage.”
“A family is formed by a father and a mother,” said Teresa Vazquez, a 51-year-old homemaker and member of a group opposed to same-sex marriage. “And I don’t agree with their idea that a couple of two men is a family, because it’s not and it’s a bad example for children.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion