Merida, Yucatan — The halls of the legislature were filled with the sound of angry activists when state legislators again rejected a measure that would have brought same-sex marriage to Yucatan.
Legislatures voted down marriage equality in April, as well. That vote was 15-9. Today’s vote was secret, cast in a corner of the Plenary Hall, and missed by news photographers.
Punto Medio reported that the Movimiento Ciudadano party’s Silvia Lopez Escoffie and Milagros Romero Bastarrachea voted for the measure.
Lopez Escoffie implored lawmakers to see the law from a human rights standpoint, and not as religious issue.
PRD Rep. Alejandro Cuevas Mena indicated on social media that he also voted in favor of gay marriage here.
Same-sex marriage will come to Yucatan whether state lawmakers like it or not. Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional.
Same-sex couples are free to marry in 18 of Mexico’s 31 states and Mexico City, covering 55% of the population. An additional 1% of the population, mostly in Querétaro, live in municipalities that allow same-sex marriage.
Yucatan overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in a 24–1 vote in 2009. PAN politicians justified the ban alleging that “there still aren’t adequate conditions within Yucatan society to allow for unions between people of the same sex.”
Ten years later, lawmakers are still resisting. From the gallery, proponents of the law shouted “cowards!”
Gay and lesbian couples can marry in Yucatan, however, if they petition the court.
The state’s first same-sex wedding was in 2013, when Javier Alberto Carrillo Esquivel and Ricardo Arturo Góngora won a federal injunction.
The ceremony was at the Blu Namu nightclub and was attended by 400 guests.
Sources: Punto Medio, Wikipedia
