OurScene TV – life/style tv for the LGBTQ community

MEXICO CITY ISSUES MARRIAGE LICENSES TO GAY COUPLES

We've been following the progress of the international marriage equality fight for well over a year. This week Mexico City has taken yet another step forward in the fight for equal rights.

The AP is reporting: Throngs of Mexico City gay and lesbian couples registered for marriage licenses Thursday, the day Latin America’s first gay-marriage law took effect.

The first gay weddings will take place within a week to 10 days, after the paperwork is processed.

Mexico City’s legislature approved the first law explicitly giving gay marriages the same status as heterosexual ones in December. The change will allow same-sex couples to adopt children, apply for bank loans together, inherit wealth and be included in the insurance policies of their spouse, rights they were denied under civil unions allowed in the city.

“This is great, it is a feeling of relief, of celebration, everything,” said Daniel Ramos, 20, a medical student planning to marry his boyfriend, Temistocles Villanueva, on March 12.

“For Latin America, this is not only a precedent, but an example to follow,” he added.

For now the law applies only to residents of Mexico City, though a marriage performed in one Mexican state must be recognized in the rest of the country.

While activists are trying to get the law extended to the rest of Mexico’s 31 states, conservatives say they will seek to pass a constitutional reform so that other states won’t have to recognize marriages that do not conform to their laws.

For the time being, it appears easy to circumvent the residency requirement, because the city accepts a phone or utility bill as proof of address – often even if the bill is in someone else’s name.