Colima legalizes same-sex unions
The bill provides gay couples with the same rights as married heterosexual couples, while preserving the term “marriage” as a union exclusively between a man and a woman. It must be ratified within the next 30 days by six of the state’s 10 municipalities in order to become law.
The town of Cuauhtemoc, governed by the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), has already been performing discreet same-sex unions since February 27, despite Colima laws not yet permitting such acts.
Local PRD deputy Enrique Velazquez has introduced a similar bill that would reinforce the rights of same-sex couples who live together to the Jalisco Congress, although it may prove more difficult to pass such a progressive measure in this more Catholic and conservative state. The Archbishop of Guadalajara, Cardinal Jose Francisco Robles Ortega, warned this week that the bill was an attempt to “deceive” people and “disguise” gay marriage, while Velazquez responded that “homosexuals are also sons of God, they are human beings and Jalisco citizens.”
Velazquez believes the state is more liberal than it seems, citing in May a PRD poll that showed almost half of the Jalisco population would approve of same-sex unions, provided that this is not referred to as marriage.
However, previous attempts to bring about same-sex unions have met little success in the state. In March, Guadalajara’s civil registry refused to wed a lesbian couple and in May it rejected another four same-sex couples, citing Article 258 of the Civil Code of Jalisco, which defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman.
Same-sex unions were first legalized in Mexico City in 2010 and since then has gradually become more accepted in other parts of the country.
In April 2012, a judge in Oaxaca granted a lesbian couple permission to marry following an eight-month legal battle. Then in August, a federal judge ordered the state of Oaxaca to perform same-sex marriages, basing his ruling on constitutional reform from June 2011 which banned discrimination based on sexual orientation.
This ruling and two others were reviewed last December by Mexico’s Supreme Court, which issued unanimous rulings overturning the ban on same-sex marriage in three individual cases in Oaxaca. Although five individual cases must be decided this way in order for an official legal precedent to be set, it appears that the tide is slowly turning in favor of same-sex marriage across Mexico.
Seven heads found just south of Guadalajara
Agents from the Fiscal General’s Office (FGE) found the heads and other human remains in an advanced state of decomposition in black bags at a house in the municipality of Zacoalco de Torres late on July 3.
They were led to the property after arresting three suspects for the murder of two men in Colonia Los Cajetes in Zapopan last week. The detainees confessed to being members of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion and disclosed the location of the safe house where the heads were found.
Officers from the FGE, the State Civil Protection Unit and the Jalisco Fire Department were still scouring the area with the use of heavy machinery this week, but none of the bodies have been located to date.
An error in the preliminary vote count system forced electoral officials to order a recount in Baja California, the only state with a governorship at stake. The final results are not expected until the weekend, but with 97 percent of the ballots counted, the PAN had led the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) by three points, with 47.17 percent of the vote.
Municipal and local congressional elections also took place in 13 other states. The conservative PAN, in alliance with the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), won municipal elections in five state capitals, including Aguascalientes, Mexicali, Puebla and Saltillo, while the centrist PRI prevailed in eight state capitals, among them Cancun, Oaxaca and Tijuana, as well as most of the legislative races.
The results offer some relief for the PAN, which relinquished the presidency after 12 years in power in last year’s general election. Defeat in Baja California would have been disastrous as the state has been considered something of a PAN stronghold since 1989, when it became the first to fall into opposition hands during the 71-year reign of the PRI.
President Enrique Peña Nieto can draw positives from the opposition victory in Baja California because he needs to keep the opposition onside in order to pass upcoming energy and tax reforms in Congress, where the PRI lacks a majority. Tri-partisan support for Peña Nieto’s reformist agenda should continue unabated with the outcome in Baja California strengthening the positions of the PAN and PRD party presidents, who are both committed to the president’s Pact for Mexico, but would have found themselves under increasing internal pressure had the PRI reclaimed the state.
The elections were marked by a wave of violence in which at least ten people were killed, including candidates, their family members, campaign staff and political activists. A number of politicians also suffered attacks, death threats and kidnappings, leading some to withdraw their candidacies or stop campaigning publicly.
The specter of organized crime hung over the campaigns like a malevolent raincloud, with the perpetrators of the violence believed to be drug gangs intent on influencing the outcome of the elections. PRI officials not only accused the PAN of using illegal campaign funds in Baja California, but also alleged that the PAN’s mayoral candidate in the city of Aguascalientes took money from the notorious La Familia Michoacana cartel. The PAN and PRD swiftly hit back accusing the PRI of vote buying, fraud, corruption and voter intimidation.
One of the clearest consequences of this mudslinging was a rise in voter disillusionment. The level of abstention in some parts of the country reached over 60 percent, while many voters in Xalapa, Veracruz expressed their dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer by voting for a cat in the municipal election.
The invention of a disillusioned group of friends, Morris, the “candigato” soon went viral on social networks, winning over 157,000 followers on Facebook with slogans such as “Tired of voting for rats? Vote for a cat.”
With 72 percent of the ballots counted, the Veracruz Electoral Institute recorded over 8,700 null votes and ballots for unregistered candidates, the majority of which were marked with Morris’ name, while over 600 of the cat’s followers posted photos of their ballots for him on his Facebook page on Monday.
The Tequila Files 