Same-Sex Adoption Ban Overturned in Mexico
Mexico’s Supreme Court overturned a discriminatory law that banned same-sex couples from adopting. Protecting children was the main reason behind the ruling.Â
In a 9-1 ruling on Tuesday, Mexico’s Supreme Court struck down a 2013 law in the southeastern state of Campeche that banned same-sex couples from adopting children. The decision only affects adoptions in Campeche, but may serve as the precedent for the lifting of the ban in other states.
According to Latin American news network teleSUR, presiding Judge Luis Maria Aguila defending the ruling by discussing the importance of protecting adopted children. “I see no problem for a child to be adopted in a society of co-existence, which has precisely this purpose. Are we going to prefer to have children in the street, which according to statistics exceed 100,000? We attend, of course, and perhaps with the same intensity or more, to the interests of the child,” she said.
Eduardo Medina Mora was the only opponent according to teleSUR. He argued that the interest of children should be prioritized over those seeking to adopt them.
Equal rights are quickly progressing in Mexico. Last June, the Mexican Supreme court effectively made same-sex marriage legal just before the Supreme Court of the United Statues followed suit. The ruling in Mexico is technically considered a “jurisprudential thesis” and does not invalidate any state laws that are currently on the books. According to BuzzFeed, same-sex couples might still run into a few snags because local registrars are not required to follow this ruling; however gay couples denied marriage rights in their states are able to seek injunctions from district judges since the jurisprudential thesis now requires the judges to grant them. In a roundabout way, the Mexican Supreme Court effectively made same-sex marriage legal across the country.
Image by rd76pag via Flickr and a CC license

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