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Mexico City hosts nation's first gay marriages
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Kenito
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Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:30 am
Posts: 648
Location: Rosarito, Baja California, MX
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 Mexico City hosts nation's first gay marriages Mexico City hosts nation's first gay marriages
Several couples wed at the Municipal Palace in Mexico City, which legalized same-sex marriage in December. The law has been challenged by the federal government.
March 12, 2010|By Tracy Wilkinson
Reporting from Mexico City — The mayor was there. So were the protesters. Judith Vazquez wore an ivory wedding dress. So did her bride.
Vazquez and Lol Kin Castaneda on Thursday became the first gay couple to marry in Mexico under a new law that allows same-sex couples to wed and to adopt children.
"This is a historic day," presiding judge Hegel Cortes said shortly after pronouncing Vazquez and Castaneda "legitimately united in matrimony." Three other same-sex couples also tied the knot.
The law was passed by the Mexico City legislature in December and applies only to the capital. It is the most far-reaching gay-rights law in Latin America and one of several measures that have put the city and its leaders at odds with the more conservative country.
Actress and feminist activist Jesusa Rodriguez's flight was delayed and she missed the event; she and her partner of 30 years were wed later in a separate ceremony.
The city put on quite a show, despite harsh criticism from the conservative ruling party that governs the nation and from the influential Roman Catholic Church.
The ceremony took place in the columned courtyard of the 300-year-old Municipal Palace, on a stage festooned with white lilies and a larger-than-life bust of Benito Juarez. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard attended, applauding warmly and hugging all of the newlyweds, as did the heads of the city's legislature and highest court.
"I am overjoyed to finally be making this real," said Vazquez, 44. "A different world is possible."
The couples responded affirmatively when asked by the judge whether they were entering marriage of their free will. Then Vazquez and her bride were the first to step up and sign the registry, each sealing it with a thumbprint. They gave an ink-stained thumbs up and kissed as the audience erupted in cheers.
Alberto Rodriguez, carrying a bright bouquet of carnations, was there to support his sister, Jesusa.
"I never in my life thought I'd see this," said Rodriguez, 61, an accountant. "There is very strong change coming to my country. Very slowly, like everything here, but change is coming."
Outside the Municipal Palace on the edge of downtown's vast Zocolo plaza, several dozen demonstrators in green T-shirts waved signs proclaiming marriage as the union of man and woman. "Don't get confused!" the signs said.
"Can you imagine if two fathers take a kid to kindergarten, how all the other kids are going to react?" asked Carlos Osorio, a 29-year-old actor in charge of the protest. "Mexican society is not capable of accepting this."
Osorio said the city should have waited for the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the law before allowing weddings.
The federal government of President Felipe Calderon, a conservative Catholic, filed a challenge to the law last month, arguing that it violates the rights and protections of families and children. The city's legal advisor, Leticia Bonifaz, said she didn't expect a ruling for a year or more.
The Roman Catholic Church has been unusually vocal in its criticism, saying it was especially alarmed that gay couples would be allowed to adopt children. Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera labeled the law "perverse and immoral" and said the Mexican family was "under attack."
More recently, the church has focused its anger on Ebrard, the mayor and a likely contender for president in 2012.
"He does not hide his aversion to the church and to the majority that he governs who profess Christian faith and reject the perversion of their most respected and cherished values, the family," the archdiocese of Mexico City said in a statement Thursday.
Under Ebrard and his left-wing party, Mexico City has enacted a number of liberal laws and programs, including the legalization of abortion, that may seem out of step with the rest of the country. In the case of abortion, several states responded by digging in their heels to keep abortion illegal.
A similar backlash might be in store for gay marriage as several states begin to examine legislation that would define matrimony as the union of man and woman.
"People will have to change their mentality," said David Razu, a city legislator who promoted the law, which changed the Civil Code to define marriage as the union of "two persons."
Vazquez said she knew the fight was not over. "I am dreaming," she said, "but with my eyes wide open."
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| Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:21 am |
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Kenito
Site Admin
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:30 am
Posts: 648
Location: Rosarito, Baja California, MX
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Mexico City woos same-sex honeymooners Mexico City woos same-sex honeymooners
Mexico City, Mexico (CNN) -- As more governments approve same-sex marriage laws, officials here are hoping to attract a growing part of the tourism market: gay honeymoons.
The first couple to wed under Argentina's recent law allowing same-sex marriages nationwide arrives in Mexico this week on an all-expenses-paid trip -- part of a new push by the government in Mexico City, Mexico to woo gay travelers.
"We hope that many same-sex couples who get married around the world spend their honeymoons here," says Alejandro Rojas, the city's tourism secretary.
In July, the city opened an office aimed at catering to gay tourists that officials describe as the first of its kind in Latin America.
"We are a very tolerant, liberal, avant-garde city," Rojas says.
Officials inaugurated the new office by cutting a rainbow-colored ribbon. Rojas said the office's goal is to make Mexico City the No. 1 gay-friendly destination in Latin America.
"Mexico has a tradition of being a rather macho culture... This is a sign of a very important social change," says Argentinean architect Jose Luis David Navarro, who will be spending part of his honeymoon in Mexico City this week.
The city's tourism secretary called to congratulate Navarro and his husband soon after they wed in northern Argentina in July.
For years, it was rare to see gay rights issues gaining traction in Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Not anymore, according to Javier Corrales, a professor of political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
"Latin America currently has some of the most gay-friendly cities in the developing world," says Corrales, who ranks cities' gay-friendliness in a new book he co-edited, "The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America."
Homosexuality remains a divisive issue in much of Mexico, with conservative politicians pushing for laws banning same-sex marriage in many states after Mexico City approved a gay marriage law last year.
The country's Roman Catholic Church leaders have been vocal opponents of the Mexico City law, which took effect in March and also allows married gay couples to adopt children.
But Mexico City officials say they hope to set a strong example that the rest of the country will follow.
Project plans for the new gay tourism office are still in the works.
In addition to training local hotels and restaurants on how to be sensitive to gay clientele, officials say they hope to create maps of the city highlighting attractions for gay tourists and possibly host an international gay tourism conference.
Hotels, restaurants and businesses in Mexico City have responded positively to the program so far, Rojas said.
So many sponsors offered to chip in for the Argentinean couple's free honeymoon that the city government didn't have to contribute any funds.
The annual economic impact of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender travelers is about $63 billion in the U.S. alone, according to Community Marketing, Inc. of San Francisco, California. On the global scale, Rojas says, that number is even greater.
"Around the world, it is a very important market," Rojas says.
Gay tourists represent 15 percent of the world's tourism market, and they spend more money than heterosexual tourists when they travel, he says.
Recognizing the commercial value of gay tourism is a positive step, Navarro says, but it also shows that more social change is needed.
"I hope that there comes a day in the future when they don't have to have an office for gay tourists, just like there isn't an office for Asian tourists," Navarro says.
But for now, he says, he and his husband are looking forward to the chance to visit Mexico City for the first time.
"Our suitcase is already packed," he says. "After 27 years of happiness together, this is the icing on the cake."
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| Wed Sep 01, 2010 4:13 pm |
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