The Mexican Supreme Court (la Suprema
Corte de Justicia de la Nacion) on Monday declared a law in the state
of Oaxacan limiting marriage to heterosexual couples to be in violation of
the country's constitution.
According to the Washington
Blade, the court cited two groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court
civil rights cases, Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. Board
of Education, in its 56-page
ruling.
“The historic disadvantages that
homosexuals have suffered have been amply recognized and documented:
public scorn, verbal abuse, discrimination in their places of
employment and in the access of certain services, including their
exclusion from certain aspects of public life. In comparative law it
has been argued that discrimination that homosexual couples have
suffered when they are denied access to marriage is analogous with
the discrimination suffered by interracial couples at another time.”
Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, Mexico's
court does not have the authority to simultaneously strike down laws
throughout the nation. However, it's clear that the ruling paves the
way for Mexico to legalize marriage equality now that such bans have
been deemed unconstitutional.
The federal municipality of Mexico City
first legalized such unions in 2009, and the Supreme Court has
previously ruled that those marriages must be recognized nationwide.
Oaxaca lawmakers filed proposals aimed
at amending the state's civil code after the court unanimously struck
down the state's marriage law more than two months ago.
Alex Ali Mendez Diaz, a lawyer who
represented the three couples which filed the challenge, told
BuzzFeed.com that the delay in issuing a formal decision suggests
there may have been disagreement between some of the justices on the
court.
“Without a doubt, we have made
history … in Mexico,” Mendez
told BuzzFeed. “The next step is to extend this experience to
other parts of the country.”