¡Ah, Jalisco!
(via CNN Mexico)
Last Thursday (31 October) the Jalisco State Congress approved a Civil Union bill, under the name of a “Free Cohabitation Law”, a new legal entity that will permit same-sex couples to establish a legal relationship and thereby share rights like social security. It guarantees the right to claim pensions, inheritance, and social security benefits between partners of the same or opposite sex.
The bill passed 20-15, the PRI, PRD, and Greens voting in favor, PAN and Morena opposed.
Jalisco is one of a handful of states where legal cases were likely to reach the Supreme Court regarding the right to same-gender marriage. With passage of this law, any case arising from Jalisco (where there was at least one challenge to the existing “one man-one woman” marriage law) will be moot… and it lessens the chances of the Supreme Court ruling this year on a fifth challenge to similar laws in the several states, which have held back an expected constitutional change that would make same-gender marriages legal throughout the Republic.
Good as a half-way measure like the “Free Cohabitation” (and other new legal forms) are, they do not extend the same rights as marriage. They only apply within the state, and couples who leave the state, or who are applying for federal benefits granted to married couples are not protected by these state laws.
PAN, as the Catholic Party in all but name, naturally opposes any bill legalizing same-gender relationships. In Colima, where the state legislature created Civil Unions under the strange name of “Conjugal Bonds” Morena legislators voted against the bill because they wanted challenges to the state’s marriage law to go to the Supreme Court (which has broadly hinted… everything but formally announced… it would rule in favor of the overturning gender requirements in marriage contracts) and one assumes the same rationale applied to their vote against Jalisco’s “Free Cohabitation” bill.
The Mex Files 
I was just in Ft. Wayne IN to visit my in-laws. Like every other place in the States, there are Mexicans working and living there. After a week the Californian that I am got homesick for tortillas and beans, and found a small taqueria near an old neighborhood. Not great but good enough for me and all the immigrants and their families…un pedacito de mi hogar. When I paid, I told the female owner in Spanish that I was from Los Angeles, and so happy to have a little warm food. I noticed a prominent altar of various santos and a photo of a cathedral. Not recognizing it, I asked if it was Puebla. No, came the swift answer filled with obvious pride, Guadalajara. Ah, Jalisco, I said. She nodded with a smile when I recalled the time I spent there, and how beautiful was the city with its fine opera house. Yes, a wonderful place where we respect the rights of everyone, she said, as she glanced at this very news headline in the copy of “El Informador.” As it happens, Indiana is in the midst of its own legislative battle over the marriage equality issue.