‘It was approved overall by 39 votes in favor and 20 against, with five abstentions,’ said a spokesman for the bill’s chief sponsor, assemblyman Davi Razu.
Spokesman Oscar Oliver said the city’s majority leftist legislators also defeated an opposition amendment to the gay marriage bill that would have prevented same-sex couples from adopting children.
‘For centuries, unjust laws prohibited marriage between whites and blacks or Europeans and (indigenous) Indians,’ Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) lawmaker Victor Romo said.
‘Today all those barriers have come down.’ The new measure modified a civil union law already on the books in
In
The
The vote was preceded by a lively, three-hour debate during which President Felipe Calderon’s conservative PAN issued a statement calling the gay marriage bill ‘an electoral ploy by the PRD that mocks and abuses the gay community.’ Outside the city’s assembly building, about 100 gay rights activists demonstrated in favor of the marriage bill, some holding up signs saying: ‘Be Happy, Be Gay.’ We’ve got to celebrate. It’s a social and cultural breakthrough that acknowledges a historic debt owed the gay community,’ said Antonio Medina, an activist and editor for the gay-news agency Notiese.
‘Let’s hope the conservatives won’t manage to reverse it by taking it before the Supreme Court of Justice,’ he told AFP, as some homosexual couples celebrated the law by hugging and kissing.
Under the new law, same-sex marriages can be officiated 45 days after the approval of the measure, beginning in February, gay rights activists said.
Before Monday’s vote,
An opinion poll in September showed the city population divided on the issue of gay marriage, with 48 per cent in favor and 46 per cent opposed.
The Roman Catholic Church in
Vatican former health minister Javier Lozano Barragan, a Mexican cardinal, earlier this month said that homosexuals and transsexuals ‘will never make it to the kingdom of heaven.’
Elsewhere in Latin America, the Mexican state of Coahuila and the Brazilian state of
In late 2007,
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