[LINK] "How Mexico Quietly Legalized Same-Sex Marriage"

[rfmcdonald]

NPR's Carrie Kahn writes about the background to the Mexican Supreme Court's quiet nation-wide recognition of same-sex marriage.

In the U.S., the Supreme Court's widely anticipated ruling on same-sex marriage has been the focus of nonstop speculation and debate. In Mexico, meanwhile, the highest court effectively legalized same-sex unions this month with a decision that was so low key many failed to notice.

Mexico's Supreme Court quietly published an opinion, known as a jurisprudential thesis, ruling that defining marriage as a union only between a man and a woman is discriminatory and in violation of Mexico's constitution.

While the court did not explicitly say that same-sex unions were legal, the decision is seen as having that effect. And this month's ruling follows a number of court decisions in the past year that pointed in the same direction.

[. . .]

Until recently, it had been extremely difficult for same-sex couples to be wed in Mexico, as Victor Manuel Aguirre and Fernando Urias know all too well.

Speaking by phone from their home in Mexicali, just across the border from Calexico, Calif., Aguirre says the couple tried four times in the past two years to marry at city hall.

Each time they were confronted by protesters, hostile local officials and legal obstacles. They finally took their case all the way to Mexico's highest court, which ruled in their favor. They were wed on Jan. 17.

"After so much troubles," Aguiree says with a laugh.