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The New York Times
Americas
Gay Marriage Puts
Mexico City
at Center of Debate
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Photo: Jennifer Szymaszek for The New York Times
Ivonne Cervantes, left, and Angela Alfarache with
their daughter, Constanza. A Mexico City law will recognize
both as parents. |
By ELISABETH MALKIN,
nytimes.com from the Web, February 7, 2010
MEXICO CITY — Angela Alfarache
and Ivonne Cervantes met at a party 16 years ago and have been a couple ever
since, filling their lives with books and writing and friends. After their
daughter, Constanza, was born six years ago, they became a family.
Mexican law never saw it that way. Only Constanza’s biological mother —
the pair will not say which one gave birth to her because, as they explain, they
are both her mothers — is her legal parent. The law does not recognize the
other mother.
In a few weeks, that will change. A new Mexico City law goes into effect
March 4 that will allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, propelling
the city to the forefront of the global gay rights movement.
“We want society to change its chip that says there is only one kind of family,”
said Ms. Alfarache.
But fierce opposition erupted almost as soon as the law was passed on Dec. 22.
In his final homily of the year in Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera
said, “Today the family is under attack in its essence by the equivalence of
homosexual unions with marriage between a man and a woman.” Roman Catholic
groups asked the conservative federal government to intervene.
President Felipe Calderón said the Constitution defined marriage as between a
man and a woman, although legal experts disagree. His attorney general
filed a challenge before the Supreme Court, arguing that the law violates a
constitutional clause protecting the family.
Under its left-wing mayor and city assembly, Mexico City has stretched the
nation’s limits in acknowledging just how much the conceptions and realities of
family have changed here. The city legalized abortion in the first 12
weeks of pregnancy, untangled its cumbersome divorce laws and recognized civil
unions.
But while many families have been fractured by migration, teenage pregnancy,
divorce and abandonment, most Mexicans still cherish the ideal of a nuclear
family.
“The same word cannot have two different meanings,” said Mariana Gómez del
Campo, the Mexico City leader of the president’s National Action Party, or PAN.
“It will weaken the legal definition of marriage.”
More important, she said, is protecting children’s rights. “One of their
rights is to have a family,” she said. “A child does not get to decide
what kind of family it is.”
In an unscientific poll taken and cited by the party, just over half of the
respondents disapproved of gay marriage and about three-quarters opposed
adoption by same-sex couples.
But even if that accurately represents Mexican sentiments, the law’s backers in
the city assembly as well as among gay men and lesbians argue that their vote
was aimed at expanding rights, a decision that cannot be based on opinion polls
or referendums.
“Politically, the federal government is declaring that the Constitution only
protects heterosexual families,” said David Razú, the city legislator who
proposed the new law. “It’s a government that discriminates against its
own citizens.”
The federal government says that Mexico City’s 2007 civil unions law gives
same-sex couples the rights they have been seeking. But in practice — when
it comes to including a partner in public health insurance plans, applying for
state bank loans or recognizing a parent — the law has not worked, said Judith
Vázquez, a gay rights activist.
In positioning himself as a defiant social liberal, Mexico City’s mayor, Marcelo
Ebrard, is taking a political gamble. He wants to run for president in
2012, and his views may find little resonance outside the capital, where the
Roman Catholic Church holds much greater sway.
“We are looking at the recognition of rights and liberties, and in this there is
a big difference between conservatives and those of us with a liberal or
different or advanced ideas of rights,” Mr. Ebrard told reporters in response to
the federal government’s court challenge in January.
The city will not wait for the Supreme Court ruling, which could take as long as
a year, Mr. Ebrard added. Once they marry, same-sex spouses will be able
to adopt openly as a couple in Mexico City.
The city’s decisions — along with the election of two national presidents from
the conservative PAN since 2000 — have emboldened the Catholic Church to speak
out and even lobby politically in the past few years. Mexico has a long
history of anticlericalism, going back to laws in the mid-19th century.
Even after Mexico restored full rights to religious groups in 1992, the Catholic
Church was at first careful not to be seen as involving itself directly in
politics.
Elsewhere in Latin America there have been steps toward approving gay marriage.
In Argentina, the debate over gay marriage is making its way through the courts,
although the southernmost province, Tierra del Fuego, welcomed Latin America’s
first gay wedding there on Dec. 29. Uruguay allows civil unions and is
moving toward allowing same-sex couples to adopt. Argentina, Brazil,
Ecuador and Colombia all recognize some form of civil unions.
For the gay rights movement, Mexico City’s law was the result of 30 years of
activism. Ms. Cervantes, 44, a fiction writer, and Ms. Alfarache, 50, an
anthropologist who works on women’s rights issues, have been able to raise their
daughter in the open-minded environment of the capital’s university-educated
minority. Working-class couples or those outside the city face many more
barriers, they say.
Several members of Ms. Cervantes’s family are conservative Catholics who are
struggling to reconcile their faith with their uncomfortable acceptance of her
family. “Once you know what scares you, it begins to break down what you
believe in,” Ms. Cervantes said.
Even in their liberal enclave, the couple contend that they and their daughter
should be assured of their rights.
“Our families, our doctors, the teachers — they all know that there are two
mothers,” said Ms. Alfarache, nodding at Constanza. “But you can’t leave
rights to people’s good will. We want the whole package, the rights — and
the responsibilities.”
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