The governor of the Mexican state of
Jalisco, Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, has apologized for saying that gay
marriage is “gross,” El Informador 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.”
On Thursday, the president of the Human
Rights Commission, Felipe de Jesus Alvarez Cibrian, said that
Gonzalez Marquez had apologized for the remark in a letter addressed
to the commission. The governor said he did not mean to offend
anyone.
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.
Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, the
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Guadalajara who shares a close
relationship with the governor, was among the dignitaries present to
hear Gonzalez Marquez's speech.
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.