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 Editorials | Issues | January 2007 
Gay Rights Surface in the Mexican Desert
 Cox News Service
| | Euphoric gay rights advocates are hopeful the Coahuila law will spread to other states and lead to a federal gay union law. |
Saltillo, Mexico - San Francisco this isn't.
Here on the outskirts of the forbidding Chihuahua desert, where ranches sprawl for miles and cowboy culture rules, life is marked by a conservative streak that dates back to the Spanish friars of the 1500's.
So, many residents in the border state of Coahuila were surprised earlier this month when the legislature approved civil unions for gay couples, instantly placing Texas's neighbor on the vanguard of gay rights in the Americas. Coahuila joins Mexico City, Buenos Aires and a southern state in Brazil as Latin America locales approving gay unions.
Coahuila's new law did not result from a vigorous grassroots movement - the state has never hosted a gay rights march, say gay activists in Coahuila. In fact some of the most astonished reactions have come from members of the state's largely low-key gay community.
"I never thought it would happen, much less here in Coahuila," said Roberto Martinez, a 30-year-old hair stylist in Coahuila's capital Saltillo, who plans to take advantage of the new law. "There's still a lot of machismo in Coahuila."
The surprises don't end there.
The change was ushered in by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 straight years and has come to represent the traditional way of doing things for much of the Mexican electorate.
The legislation passed 20-13, was signed Jan. 11 by the state's PRI governor and is set to take effect in February. It led some in Coahuila to speculate that the PRI, which nationally is facing a crisis of identity, favored the law for reasons of political image.
"(The law) could be product of the PRI's need to show another face of openness and tolerance," said sociology professor Gilberto Aboites of the Autonomous University of Coahuila. "Which isn't necessarily a bad thing ... It can start a more reasonable discussion."
Euphoric gay rights advocates are hopeful the Coahuila law will spread to other states and lead to a federal gay union law. Such a trend however would bump against the socially conservative administration of President Felipe Calderon.
Health Secretary Jose Cordoba in particular has come under fire for suggesting that efforts to reduce discrimination against gays promote a homosexual lifestyle.
The Coahuila law does not sanction gay marriage, but rather allows same sex couples to legalize their relationships before a Mexican justice of the peace.
Advocates say it will allow couples to protect themselves in case of death, preserving property rights for survivors. It could also extend retirement and health benefits to significant others. Lawmakers stress that the law also extends to non-gay pairs, such as an unrelated caretaker.
Julieta Lopez, the PRI state representative who introduced the bill, said she hopes the law also brings about a more tolerant society.
Despite Coahuila's new status, it is by no means a haven for gay Mexicans. Many cities and towns still have laws against public displays of homosexual behavior and a repressive atmosphere has sent many gay residents deep into the closet - and into uncontrolled, underground sex clubs, a situation that complicates attempts at HIV education, activists said.
"We need to change our laws to new realities," Lopez said. "And we hope it brings more tolerance and respect for people not in traditional relationships."
The law has generated a divided, and surprisingly muted, response from Coahuilan society. Catholic bishops in the state have been split on the issue. And although newspaper polls showed most Coahuila residents oppose the law, protesters haven't hit the streets.
Older residents in particular have been upset by the state's decision.
"What I don't like is homosexuals doing things as though they were a normal couple," said 68-year-old Maria Garcia Morales after attending a church service recently. "It seems pretty strange to me."
Others worry that Coahuila's image will suffer. The state was mocked recently on a nationwide TV program, with members of the state's soccer team depicted in backless shorts.
"Coahuila is not even like that," said 18-year-old Zulema Perez of Saltillo.
Yet the issue hasn't created anywhere near the backlash as in the United States after gay marriage was legalized in San Francisco and Massachusetts. Same-sex unions in San Francisco were later nullified by court rulings and California's supreme court is expected to rule this year on whether a voter-imposed ban on gay unions is constitutional.
"A lot of people were amazed at the beginning and angry, but now it's not so taboo," said Ismael Antonio Morales, a taxi driver in Saltillo. "We're going to have to accept it."
That acceptance is exactly what members of the state's lesbian and gay community are hoping for.
Daniel Arroyo Perez, a 39-year-old Saltillo businessman, expects the measure will provide legal protection for him and his partner of 10 years. The couple owns property and worries that should one of them die, the other's family could step in and take the couple's assets.
"We've seen cases of that and we don't want it to happen to us," he said.
Supporters of the law say it wouldn't have been possible without the state's dramatic economic transformation over the last 20 years, which has seen a rural, ranch-based economy modernized by heavy industry along the border and around the capital.
Humberto Moreira, Coahuila's 40-year-old governor, signed the reform into law. He is considered a rising star within the PRI nationally and campaigned on an anti-discrimination platform.
The PRI's chief rivals in the state, the ruling National Action Party (PAN) of President Calderon has seized on the issue, voting as a bloc against the measure.
"If the PRI did this for votes, it will cost them in the next election," vowed Esther Quintana Salinas, head of the state party. "This tries to damage the institution of marriage."
Gay advocates in the state say they hope the law emboldens the local gay community.
"It's a lonely fight here - there are just a handful of people in the cities of the north doing this work," said Aida Badillo, director of Eux, Arte y SIDA, a Coahuila AIDS education organization that supported the law. "There's a lot left to be done, but the foundations are being built." |
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