Same-sex marriage in Yucatán: Decision due
Mexico City — Mexico’s Supreme Court on Wednesday will reportedly decide whether it will force Yucatán to extend equal marriage rights to same-sex couples.
Non-governmental human rights groups Indignación, UNASSE and Oasis de San Juan de Dios have fought for years to allow gay weddings without having to file with the courts.
In 2015 the State Judicial Branch dismissed a petition filed by the organizations.
Same-sex marriage is legal in Mexico City, and all 31 Mexican states must recognize marriages performed there. But in Yucatán, same-sex marriages were declared illegal 2009, a ruling that has been challenged by human-rights groups ever since.
Although illegal, courts can OK a wedding on a case-by-case basis, a hurdle no heterosexual couple would ever have to leap. The state’s first same-sex civil ceremony was in 2013, when Javier Alberto Carrillo Esquivel and Ricardo Arturo Góngora won a federal injunction allowing them to get married.
The wedding was hosted at the disco Blu Namu and was attended by 400 guests. The couple, who wore white guayaberas, gave a press conference before the ceremony.
The two young men, after being a couple for four years, brought the legal challenge to the provision of the Civil Registry.
Same-sex marriage is also legal in Chihuahua, Coahuila, Jalisco, Nayarit and Quintana Roo.
Yucatán Magazine has the inside scoop on living here. Sign up to get our top headlines delivered to your inbox every week.