The governor of the Mexican state of
Jalisco, Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, said Friday that gay marriage is
“gross,” the Spanish news agency EFE reported.
Speaking at a forum on family in
Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco, Gonzalez Marquez said: “Marriage
is a man and a woman … the other [gay marriage], as they say, still
grosses me out.”
Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, the
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Guadalajara, was among the dignitaries
present at the event.
Gonzalez Marquez, a member of the
nation's conservative National Action Party (PAN), was among the
governors who, along with the country's attorney general, filed a
challenge to Mexico City's groundbreaking gay marriage law, arguing
that it was detrimental to children. The nation's highest court,
however, found the law, and its provision that allows gay couples to
adopt, to be constitutional, and ruled that all states must recognize
the gay marriages performed in the capital.
The Roman Catholic Church harshly
criticized the law, but Sandoval Iniguez created a firestorm of
controversy when he used the word “fags” in accusing Mexico City
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of bribing the court to rule in the city's
favor.
Speaking in Aguascalientes, Sandoval
Iniguez said the court would not have reach such an “absurd”
conclusion unless it was motivated by a large sum of money.
“I do not know of any of you who
would like to be adopted by a pair of lesbians or a pair of fags,”
he said. “I think not.”
Ebrard responded by filing a defamation
suit against Cardinal Sandoval Iniguez.