Politicians in Yucatan are trying to delay the inevitable: the legalization of gay marriage in the state.
On Tuesday, the Constitutional and Governmental Affairs Commission of the Yucatan Congress had to meet at 11 a.m., and according to the order of the day, it had to harmonize the state Constitution and the Civil Code to be in accordance with the Supreme Court’s marriage-equality mandate. The Court of Justice of the Nation in 2015 determined that the restriction of marriage as an exclusive civil act between men and women is discriminatory and illegal.
But most of the local representatives missed the session, so there was no quorum and the issue was tabled. With this, the Congress of Yucatan continues in contempt of the high court’s orders.
So far, Yucatan is the only Mexican state in the southern peninsula that has not approved marriage between people of the same sex.
LGBTI activists charged that the absences was an orchestrated strategy to postpone the vote. Last week, the same thing happened in the Congress of the State of Mexico, where Morena and Acción Nacional joined together to make the session void and not to legislate equal marriage.
“They want to tire us to avoid the issue, but we will not take a step back, ” said Alex Orué , human rights defender and director of the LGBT organization It Gets Better Mexico.
“We already know how they spend to avoid the issue, there are always more important events or issues, and if they can get up early, they will do it,” he told HuffPost Mexico. “The PAN coordinator, Rosa Adriana Díaz, apparently wants to bring to consultation the issue of equal marriage in Yucatan, and possibly the coordinator of Morena, Edmundo Candiña Moh, wants to follow the move.”
But the Supreme Court has already ruled that constitutional rights aren’t subject to popular vote, he noted.
Orué and lawyer Carlos Escoffié presented a request, addressed to the Commission of Constitutional Points and Governance of the State Congress, so that the discussion of the reforms is carried out under the open parliamentary model.
