A word
I really didn’t expect to write a second wonkish post on Mexican constitutional language in one week, but this just snuck up on me.
Sailing though the Constitutional Issues Committee of the Chamber of Deputies by a lopsided margin of eighteen to five, was a one word change to the Mexican Constitution which may have a major impact on politics, law and social change in this country.
Article 40 now reads:
Es voluntad del pueblo mexicano constituirse en una República representativa, democrática, federal, compuesta de Estados libres y soberanos en todo lo concerniente a su régimen interior; pero unidos en una federación establecida según los principios de esta ley fundamental.
(It is the will of the Mexican people to organize themselves into a federal democratic, representative Republic composed of free and sovereign States in all that concerns their internal government but united in a Federation established according to the principles of this fundamental law.)
The additional word is “laica” –officially defining the nation as “a secular federal democratic, representative Republic…”
That Mexico is a secular state, with a strict separation of church and state (and clear restrictions on the activities of religious bodies outlined in Article 130 of the Constitution) is a given in most circumstances and the word “laica” already appears in regard to the right to a “free, secular education … based on scientific progress, struggling against ignorance and its effects — servitude, fanaticism and prejudice” (Article 3). So adding the word “laica” to Article 40 isn’t that big a deal, right?
Think about it. When the Federal District legalized abortion enough states added “life begins at conception” clauses to their state constitutions to make it a eligible for inclusion in the Federal document. After passage of the Federal District’s same-gender marriage bill, there was every indication that both PRI and PAN hoped to benefit electorally from polls that showed wide-spread dissatisfaction with the bill.
In both the abortion and same-gender marriage issue, opposition is largely based on religious values and traditions, not on neutral secular concerns like medical practice or contemporary social conditions. In effect, the change would short-circuit attempts to cut off these reforms and make legal challenges based on subjective criteria (even when the majority holds the same opinion) more difficult.
I’m not at all surprised that every PAN member on the Consitutional Issues committee voted against the change. What does surprise me is that everyone else — the usual leftie suspects (PT and PRD) as well as every PRI member (and the lone Green) — all signed off on the change. PRI has been traditionally anti-clerical, but has been supportive of the church in areas (like Jalisco) where the clergy can still swing votes their direction. I can’t explain it. Certainly, there are “progressives” in PRI and, lately, PRI has been trying to distance itself from the PRD sneer that they are part of PRIAN (PRI-PAN presumably one and the same). It could be that, by backing the PRD in what could become a controversy with PAN, they hope to put the kibosh on the PRD-PAN fusion tickets in the PRI-dominated states.
Or, it could be, the Constitutional Issues Committee sees that it is the will of the people to organize themselves in a secular … Republic.
mexfiles.net 
PRI “progressives” have been rather quiet of late, although a few small stirrings are happening.
The DF chapter – a crew that incorporates representation from the garbage mafia that runs the Bordo Poniente – refused to back the local PAN’s attempt to take the recently approved same-sex marriage laws to the Supreme Court. (This might have received more attention if the PGR had not immediately jumped in to challenge the issue.)
The local PRI, which is also linked more with 2006 mayoral candidate and current party boss, Beatriz Paredes – a woman lacking the courage of her convictions for many years now – also took issue with State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto going to the Vatican and letting slip during an audience with the Pope that he planned to marry his soap opera star girlfriend.
PRI initiative for entrenching the secular state came from Ruben Moreira, a deputy from Coahuila – a PRI stronghold that gained a “progressive” reputation for things such as passing the country’s first same-sex domestic partnership laws. But the same state legislature then does things such as send a request to Congress demanding a return of the death penalty. (Moreira is the governor’s brother.)
The Coahuila PRI’s attempts last fall to criminalize the actions of those helping Central American migrants trafficking the country – a brazen swipe at the work of Saltillo Bishop Raul Vera, a true thorn in the side of the local PRI and no friend of the PAN and national church leadership, either – also are hardly “progressive” either.
The PRI is now aligned with the church in most parts of Mexico. The church, meanwhile, is no doubt willing to be at the right-hand of power – it always has.
I was wondering where you were when this came up, but saw that you’ve been in Haiti working. Welcome back!