Word: gayness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...final vote count of the city assembly was announced - 39 in favor to 20 against - the crowd of gay and lesbian activists in Mexico City exploded into cheers, hugs and kisses. With a resounding majority, the Mexican capital had become the first city in Latin America to allow same-sex couples to marry and to have the same rights as heterosexual unions. A separate motion confirmed that the couples would be able to adopt children. "This is a huge triumph that has followed so many years of struggle," said campaigner Kin Castañeda, who stood next to her partner...
...effect of the landmark vote on Monday was rapidly felt across the continent, from Patagonia to the Rio Grande, where other groups have been campaigning for gay marriage rights. On Wednesday, 10 same-sex couples filed legal motions in a court in Rosario, Argentina, demanding their right to marry. In neighboring Chile, a column in the newspaper Paradiario was headlined, "Gay Marriage Approved in Mexico. In Chile When?" In the swampy Mexican state of Tabasco, 20 gay couples sent a motion to the state legislature asking to allow them to tie the knot. Mexico City's precedent, the activists hope...
...while the ruling has encouraged campaigners, it has sparked some of the most hostile comments toward gays in recent years from social conservatives and church officials. Cardinal Norberto Rivera, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mexico City, described the law as immoral and abhorrent: "It has opened the doors to the perverse possibility that these couples will adopt innocent children and not respect their right to a mother and father with the consequent psychological damaged provoked by this injustice." In the neighboring city of Ecatepec, Bishop Onesimo Cespeda said bluntly that the idea of gay marriage was "stupidity." And Armando Martinez...
...Mexico's federal system, which gives the capital's assembly the power to pass local laws. In 2007, the assembly approved same-sex civil unions as well as allowing abortion in the first 12 weeks of any pregnancy. The following year, it approved a limited form of euthanasia. The gay marriage law may have been a surprise in much of the world, but to Mexico City residents it was the latest in a reformist agenda they have become accustomed...
However, while the so-called capitalinos have encountered little opposition to most of their other reforms, there does appear to be a higher level of grumbling about gay marriage. Provoking the most objections is the question of gay couples adopting children. A discussion bulletin on the website of the city's best-selling newspaper El Universal rapidly accumulated more than 1,000 comments, the majority negative to the idea. Similar objections can be heard on the capital's streets. "If two men want to be together, that is their decision. But adopting children is a different story," says taxi driver...