Large Protests Against Gay Marriage Expected Throughout Mexico This Month Marilyn Stowe - Stowe Family Law
go to original September 8, 2016

Two women kiss in front of people protesting gay marriage in Mexico City (Alexandre Meneghini/AP)

Organizers claim there could be as many as 100,000 people at the protest in the western city of Guadalajara scheduled for this weekend. Protests are also expected in other cities throughout September, including one in Mexico City on the 24th. These demonstrations will serve as a follow-up to the one held last weekend in the country’s capital. At that event, organizers called on the national Congress to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

This outcry followed Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s announcement in May that he plans to remove all legal barriers to same sex couples who want to marry. Currently only ten out of 31 Mexican states allow them to do so. It wasn’t right that “some people in some states or entities have certain rights and others don’t,” the President explained before he proposed a constitutional amendment to make gay marriage legal throughout the country.

Speaking to BuzzFeed News, a spokesperson for the President said:

“The initiative that [he has] presented to Congress aims to give a constitutional framework to marriage equality, consistent with the vision and jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.”

President Nieto’s proposal has been met with a lukewarm reaction from Mexico’s LGBT community. Alex Alí Méndez Díaz, legal director of the gay rights group Equality Mexico, claimed the “religious organizations had not taken notice of how much we advanced in the courts” until the President publicly got involved with the issue.

Cristian Galarza is the outreach director of campaign group the Mexican Pride Front. He said the President’s support had hurt the chances of nationwide marriage equality because he had done so while his approval rating plummeted below 30 per cent. However he still had “no fear because the legislators of our country are going to understand that they legislate for everybody”.

Marriage is not the only right which varies from state to state for gay people in Mexico. Last December the state of Tabasco banned same sex couples from having children through surrogacy agreements.

See the original at Stowe Family Law

Related: Mexicans Speak Out Against Protests Opposing Same-Sex Marriage (teleSUR)

Related: There Are 6 Scriptures About Homosexuality in the Bible. Here's What They Really Say (Upworthy)

Related: Marriage Equality Generates Unprecedented Backlash In Mexico (BuzzFeed)

Related: Mexico’s Religious Conservatives Seek Anti-LGBT Constitutional Amendment (Religion Dispatches)

Related: America Could Soon Crown Its First Ever Out Lesbian Miss America (Pink News)

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