Mexico's president proposes legalizing gay marriage

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Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Tuesday proposed legalizing gay marriage, a move that would enshrine on a national level a Supreme Court ruling last year that it was unconstitutional for states to bar same-sex couples from wedding.

Speaking at an event on the International Day Against Homophobia, Pena Nieto said he signed initiatives that would seek to add same-sex marriage provisions to Mexico's constitution and the national civil code.

Pena Nieto said he would seek to reform Article 4 of the constitution to clearly reflect the Supreme Court opinion "to recognize as a human right that people can enter into marriage without any kind of discrimination."

"That is, for marriages to be carried out without discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or nationality, of disabilities, of social or health conditions, of religion, of gender or sexual preference," he added.

The decision is a significant one, especially in Catholic-heavy Mexico. 

"Mexico is home to the world's second largest Catholic population and a conservative episcopacy," Andrew Chesnut, the Bishoph Walter Sullivan Chair of Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, told Business Insider.

"Coming on the heels of the legalization of gay marriage in Colombia, one of the world's most devoutly Catholic nations, this puts the waning power of the Church's influence on social and political matters in high relief."

The profile page of Pena Nieto's Twitter account was turned rainbow-colored Tuesday as he made the announcement.

Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/732653303591407616
Por un @Mexico incluyente que reconoce en la diversidad, una de sus mayores fortalezas #SinHomofobia. pic.twitter.com/6ooZGuPEsD

Gay marriage is already legal in some parts of Mexico such as the capital, the northern state of Coahuila, and Quintana Roo state on the Caribbean coast. Adding it to the constitution and the civil code would expand gay-marriage rights across the country.

Last June, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for Mexican states to ban same-sex couples from getting married. But the decision did not specifically overturn state laws, meaning that couples have had to sue in court in each particular case.

"Given last year's Supreme Court ruling Pena Nieto's initiative isn't surprising and given that Mexicans have the same level of acceptance of gay marriage and civil rights for LGBT as Americans ... it's a smart political move by a president with very low approval ratings whose term has been plagued by a series of political blunders and ongoing drug violence," Chesnut told Business Insider.

Mexico has the world's second-largest Catholic population, with 81% of the country's adults identifying themselves as that denomination in 2014, according to Pew Research Center.