2 brides and a wedding: Mexico witnesses 1st explicitly legal same-sex marriages

By AP
Thursday, March 11, 2010

In Mexico, gay couples celebrate historic weddings

MEXICO CITY — Two glowing brides in white gowns made history Thursday as they wed under Latin America’s first law that explicitly approves gay marriage.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard was officiating five same-sex marriages in one day, despite harsh criticism from the Roman Catholic Church and a campaign against the measure launched by President Felipe Calderon’s conservative National Action Party.

Mexico City’s legislature approved the first law explicitly giving gay marriages the same status as heterosexual ones in December. The legislation also allows same-sex couples to adopt children.

Thursday’s weddings follow several other gay marriages in Latin America, although they’re the first approved under legislative authority.

In December, two Argentine men were wed in a civil ceremony by a sympathetic governor and with court approval. In 2007, a couple in Mexico City celebrated a “same-sex union.”

The legal approval, passed in the capital district of roughly 8 million, has been closely watched in the U.S. where same-sex marriage is legal in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

In New York, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force spokesman Pedro Julio Serrano cheered the milestone.

“People in the United States can look up to Mexico City and see a courageous legislature taking a stand,” he said. “It’s a model to follow.”

Federal prosecutors are attempting to overturn the law, which Mexico City legislators argue simply gives same-sex couples the rights that heterosexual couples have regarding social security and other benefits.

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