After Final State Passes Law, Same-Gender Marriage Made Legal in All of Mexico
© AP Photo / Esteban Felix
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A process that began in 2015 was completed on Wednesday, when Mexico’s northeastern state of Tamaulipas voted to legalize same-gender marriages, meaning the right of LGBTQ people to marry is now protected in all 32 Mexican states.
Lawmakers in Tamaulipas, on the US border, voted on Wednesday to amend the state’s Civil Code to allow gay, lesbian and bisexual couples to legally wed.
The vote was 23 in favor, 12 against, and two abstentions.
Just a day earlier, across the country in Guerrero, lawmakers approved a similar legalization of same-gender marriages.
“The whole country shines with a huge rainbow. Live the dignity and rights of all people. Love is love,” Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea, president of Mexico’s Supreme Court, said on Twitter in response to the news.
Todo el país brilla con un enorme arcoíris. Vivan la dignidad y los derechos de todas las personas. Amor es amor. #MatrimonioIgualitario 🏳️🌈 pic.twitter.com/6xFSYCE63E
— Arturo Zaldívar (@ArturoZaldivarL) October 27, 2022
The high court helped set the process in motion when in June 2015, it ruled that bans on same-gender marriage were in violation of the Mexican Constitution. In Mexico, only civil marriages are recognized by law.
Just days after Mexico’s decision, the US Supreme Court made a similar ruling, striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and requiring all US states and territories to recognize same-gender marriages. Because of the court’s recent decisions reversing its ruling on abortion rights, some fear same-gender marriage could also be endangered by the court’s new conservative majority.
LGBTQ rights have made gains in Latin America in recent months, with Cuba passing a new Family Code in September that legalizes same-gender marriage and the first marriages being performed under the law earlier this week. Last December, Chile also passed a law legalizing same-gender marriage.
