Mexico prosecutor
challenges gay marriage law
From the Web, January
31, 2010
MEXICO CITY — Mexico's
attorney general has lodged an appeal at the country's top court against Mexico
City's historic approval of gay marriage, amid a heated debate in this
overwhelmingly Catholic nation.
Mexico City's legislature approved gay marriage on December 21, in the first
such law passed anywhere in Latin America.
But the attorney general's office said in its appeal to the Supreme Court late
Wednesday that the move was "anti-constitutional," as was adoption by homosexual
couples, which was also approved by the city's leftist authorities.
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard on Thursday called the appeal a "grave
mistake."
It was not the job of the federal attorney general, Arturo Chavez, to decide the
capital's laws, Ebrard said.
The initiator of the law, leftist deputy David Razu, said the move went against
rights and freedoms, with no legal basis.
Powerful religious groups and conservatives, including from President Felipe
Calderon's National Action Party, have loudly opposed gay marriages.
The Mexican capital authorized civil unions for homosexuals in November 2006 and
decriminalized abortion in April 2007, contrasting with mostly conservative
policies across the largely Catholic nation.
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