- Posted February 20, 2013 by
This iReport is part of an assignment:
Mexico's Supremes Strike Down Gay Marriage Ban
The Supreme Court of Mexico has struck down a same-gender marriage ban in three separate cases, ruling that such a ban is unconstitutional. In its ruling the Mexican Supreme Court cited landmark US Supreme Court civil rights rulings such as Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia.
In Loving v Virginia, the US Supremes found that bans on interracial marriages violated the US Constitution. In Brown v Board of Education, the Supremes determined there was no merit in "separate but equal" and prompted the integration of American public schools.
Citing the rulings, the Supreme Court of Mexico used the logic in those rulings to determine that a same-gender ban in the state of Oaxaca violated that country's constitution. Under Mexican law the Court must find in five cases that the ban is unconstitutional before the ruling takes effect throughout the nation. With three cases ruled as unconstitutional, two more cases must be decided the same way.
From the Loving v Virginia case, the Mexican Justices drew this conclusion:
The historical disadvantages that homosexuals have suffered have been well recognized and documented: public harassment, verbal abuse, discrimination in their employment and in access to certain services, in addition to their exclusion to some aspects of public life. In this sense … when they are denied access to marriage it creates an analogy with the discrimination that interracial couples suffered in another era. In the celebrated case Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court argued that "restricting marriage rights as belonging to one race or another is incompatible with the equal protection clause" under the US constitution. In connection with this analogy, it can be said that the normative power of marriage is worth little if it does grant the possibility to marry the person one chooses.
Drawing from Brown v Board of Education, the Supremes stated:
It can be said that the [other] models for recognition of same-sex couples, even if the only difference with marriage be the name given to both types of institutions, are inherently discriminatory because the constitute a regime of "separate but equal." Like racial segregation, founded on the unacceptable idea of white supremacy, the exclusion of homosexual couples from marriage also is based on prejudice that historically has existed against homosexuals. Their exclusion from the institution of marriage perpetuates the notion that same-sex couples are less worthy of recognition than heterosexuals, offending their dignity as people.
The question now becomes if the decision by the Supreme Court of Mexico will have any impact on the US Supreme Court when the Justices hear arguments over California's Prop 8 and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act in March. Traditionally, the top court in the US of A has ignored other nations' judicial decisions.
Times are changing and public sentiment is currently moving toward more tolerance and acceptance of same-gender couples. A slight majority of Americans, in most recent polls, indicate citizens believe that there should be equality in the treatment of all state-sanctioned couples. Even the US Department of Defense is moving toward equality for same-gender spouse of military members.
From the Cornfield, for those, such as I, who are GLBT the rulings in Mexico were a great victory in the quest for equality for all couples, same-gender and opposite-gender.