Catholics and left prepare to battle over gay marriage
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31 2009 17:11 Guadalajara Reporter STAFF

Church leaders of various denominations are preparing to mount a campaign to ensure that the decision taken recently by the Mexico City legislative assembly to approve gay marriage and the adoption of children by gay couples is not replicated in the rest of the country.

In last Sunday’s homily in the Mexico City Cathedral, Cardinal Norberto Rivera said, “We respect and love those with different sexual tendencies and we should safeguard their human rights, but they cannot be allowed to raise families or be called a family.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera: “We must do what is necessary to defend constitutionally the family.”

Comments by church leaders in the wake of the assembly’s decision have enraged some members of the capital’s ruling leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).

“For centuries, unjust laws prohibited marriage between whites and blacks or Europeans and indigenous people,” said lawmaker Victor Romo. “The final barriers have come down.”

Legislators approved revisions to the capital’s civil code to permit same-sex marriages by a margin of 39 to 20. Five legislators abstained. An amendment that attempted to block adoption by gay couples was defeated, making this a double victory for gay advocates.

Representatives of the left-wing Workers Party (PT) distanced themselves from the adoption clause. They argued that because authorities in Mexico were “highly corruptible,” the move could allow child traffickers and pedophile rings to take advantage. Legislators said that they would have voted in favor if Mexico was as trustworthy as other countries.

Catholic, orthodox and evangelical leaders called on Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard to veto the bill and permit a free vote on the issues. They have also asked President Felipe Calderon to intervene and overturn Mexico City’s new adoption policies. And they want other states to draw up legislation making gay marriage illegal.

The new legislation threatens to put the PRD on a collision course with Roman Catholics and other churches in Mexico.

Religious leaders’ hard-line stance has renewed calls from the left for an investigation into ties between the Catholic Church and the PRI and the PAN. There have also been calls to strengthen the lay state in Mexico, which leftist politicians say is under increasing threat. Some warn that the Catholic Church is gathering its forces to meddle in political affairs in 2010.

The church hit back, with Hugo Valdemar, spokesperson for the first archdiocese of Mexico saying, “The PRD is the declared enemy of the church and the family. If they were the inquisition they criticize so much, we would already be burning in the fire.”

Rivera said it was deplorable that legislators are becoming involved in these kinds of issues and not concentrating their focus on fixing urgent problems facing the capital, such as poverty, unemployment and crime.

Mexico's liberal capital has over the last decade become a beacon for social progress. But a recent law legalizing gay marriage — the law also allows gay couples to adopt children — has elicited a far more negative reaction than other reform measures. Mexico's foremost Catholic cleric, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, has called the law "unjust, inadmissible and condemnable."


Cardinal Norberto Rivera, the foremost Catholic cleric in Mexico, has made several harsh attacks against a new law allowing gay marriage in Mexico City. Rivera is pictured here attending a mass in the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Sept. 21, 2006

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — Inside Mexico City’s spectacular metropolitan cathedral, Cardinal Norberto Rivera conducted his last Sunday Mass of the year to packed benches.

But rather than focusing on the goodwill of the holiday season, Rivera’s sermon centered on what he said was a new affront to the nation’s Roman Catholic values: gay marriage.

Calling the unions “perverse” and an “aberration,” the prelate called on his flock to fight against a new law allowing gay marriage in Mexico City — the first of its kind in Latin America.

“This perverse example cannot spread. It is necessary to constitutionally defend the family,” Rivera said in his characteristic deep booming voice. The law “is unjust, inadmissible and condemnable.”

A wave of social liberalization has transformed the Mexican capital in recent years, but the gay marriage act has ignited a far more negative reaction than other reform measures. The law, which was approved by Mexico City’s assembly on Dec. 21 and signed into law Tuesday, also allows gay couples to adopt children.

The comments by Rivera — the foremost Catholic cleric in Mexico — are part of a series of harsh attacks and calls to action against the act.
Mexico’s College of Catholic Lawyers on Monday went even further than Rivera, calling on the faithful to try to stop gay marriages in the city.
“We need a pacific resistance so that no [gay] couple marries in this capital and the definition of marriage does not change from its natural meaning,” said college president Armando Martinez.

In the neighboring city of Ecatepec, Bishop Onesimo Cespeda was more blunt, simply saying that the idea of gay marriage was “stupidity.”
The clash between the church and state over the issue highlights the broader culture wars being fought south of Rio Grande.

Mexico has long been influenced by a conservative Roman Catholic hierarchy and almost 90 percent of the population purport to the faith.
But the nation has also borne an influential leftist tradition since the days of the Mexican Revolution at the dawn of the 20th century.

The leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) has controlled Mexico City since 1997, and passed a wave of other reforms, making the capital into what advocates say is a beacon of social progressiveness.

The changes have been possible because of Mexico's federal system, which gives the capital's assembly the power to pass local laws.