Mexico’s President Peña Nieto backs legalizing same-sex marriage

[HuckleB]

Leader will send Congress proposal for constitutional reform
http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/05/20/inenglish/1463727520_302272.html

"Mexico took another important step in the fight against discrimination this week after President Enrique Peña Nieto announced he will send a proposal to Congress to amend the Constitution to allow marriage between same-sex couples. The initiative would also require the Foreign Ministry to accept new birth certificates that reflect gender confirmation as valid forms of identification for the issuance of passports. The president made the announcement at an event held at Los Pinos, the presidential residence, to celebrate Mexico’s National Day Against Homophobia, a holiday he created by decree on March 21, 2014.

“It seems simple for us to gather here in Los Pinos but we are turning the page on a new chapter,” said Luis Perelman, an LGBTI activist who spoke at the event. Perelman, the president of the Mexican Federation of Sexual Education and Sexology, recalled how ingrained homophobia is in the country. Forty percent of Mexicans say they are not willing to share their home with a homosexual. “It is one of the few [cases of] discrimination where family is the biggest enemy,” he told the crowd.

The government wants to reform Article Four of the Constitution, which guarantees the rights of the individual, to incorporate the Supreme Court’ June 2015 ruling that gay marriages are equivalent to marriage between heterosexuals. The Court thus legalized this kind of union and declared any law that forbids it unconstitutional. Several Mexican states, however, were reluctant to adapt to the ruling. “We cannot have people in our country who have certain rights in some states but not in others,” Peña Nieto said.

Mexico will create an amendment to enshrine that right in its Constitution. “I trust that once this change has been approved for the Federal Civil Code it will eventually be added to the civil codes of different federal states that do not yet have it,” the president added.

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