Same-sex marriage in Campeche
Same-sex marriage became legal in the Mexican state of Campeche on 20 May 2016. In April 2016, Governor Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas submitted a same-sex marriage bill to Congress, which was approved on 10 May 2016.
In 2013, Campeche legalized civil unions which grant couples several of the rights and benefits of marriage.
Civil unions
On 11 April 2013, the Party of the Democratic Revolution introduced a measure to legalize civil unions in Campeche. The bill was unanimously passed on 20 December 2013, and while it covers both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, it specifically provides that it "shall not constitute a civil partnership of people living together in marriage and cohabitation." An additional distinction is that it is not filed with the civil registrar, but with the Public Registry of Property and Trade.Since 2016, couples in civil unions may legally adopt children.
Injunctions
On 31 March 2014, a lesbian couple applied for a marriage license in San Francisco de Campeche, but were rejected in April 2014 based on the decision that same-sex couples must join via the state's civil union provisions. In July 2014, Mexico's Supreme Court declared that the current marriage laws were unconstitutional and told the Campeche Congress that it must modify the Civil Code to allow same-sex marriages. It was later announced that the couple could marry after a district judge granted them an amparo, but the law still had to be revised. PAN said it would abide by the ruling. The couple married on 30 August 2014. In September 2014, the Party of the Democratic Revolution announced that 16 people, 10 from San Francisco de Campeche and 6 from Ciudad del Carmen, had filed for injunctions and that analysis of changing the marriage statutes was in progress.On 11 August 2015, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled, in a 9-1 decision, that Campeche's ban on same-sex couples adopting children was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court struck down article 19 of the civil union law which outlawed adoption by couples in civil unions. Children's rights were cited as the main reason for the Court's decision. The ruling set a constitutional precedent, meaning all bans in Mexico forbidding same-sex couples from adopting are unconstitutional and discriminatory.
President of the Supreme Court, Luis María Aguilar Morales, voted with the majority and wrote the following in the ruling:
On 23 September 2016, the Mexican Supreme Court finalised the ruling in the adoption case against Campeche and issued a nationwide jurisprudence which binds all lower court judges to rule in favor of same-sex couples seeking adoption and parental rights. Campeche's ban on same-sex adoption was lifted on 26 September.
Marriage
On 4 April 2016, Governor Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas submitted a same-sex marriage bill to Congress. Shortly after, the two largest parties in the state, PRI and PAN, announced their support for the bill. On 4 May 2016, the President of the Board of Directors announced that the bill would be voted on sometime in May 2016. On 10 May 2016, the Congress voted 34–1 to approve the same-sex marriage bill. It was published in the official state gazette on 16 May 2016 and came into effect on 20 May.Article 157 of Campeche's Civil Code now reads as follows:
- in Spanish: Establece que el matrimonio es la unión de dos personas para llevar una vida en común, en donde ambas se deben procurar respeto, igualdad y ayuda mutua. Debe celebrarse ante las autoridades del Registro Civil tal y como lo establece este Código y con las formalidades que éste exige.
- '
| Political party | Members | Yes | No | Abstain | Absent |
| Institutional Revolutionary Party | 15 | 15 | |||
| National Action Party | 11 | 11 | |||
| Ecologist Green Party | 3 | 3 | |||
| National Regeneration Movement | 3 | 2 | 1 | ||
| New Alliance Party | 2 | 2 | |||
| Party of the Democratic Revolution | 1 | 1 | |||
| Total | 35 | 34 | 1''' |
On 14 June 2016, activists opposed to same-sex marriage filed an injunction against the legislation approved by Congress. They claimed the law was unfairly imposed on Campechanos and refuted allegations of homophobia. On 7 July 2016, a federal judge ruled in favor of a stay. However, on 8 July, Congress announced that the injunction only bars the plaintiffs from marrying someone of the same sex. According to the president of Congress, Ramón Méndez Lanz, same-sex couples can continue to wed in the state.
Statistics
The following table shows the number of same-sex marriages performed in Campeche since legalization in 2016, as reported by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.Public opinion
A 2017 opinion poll conducted by Gabinete de Comunicación Estratégica found that 42% of Campeche residents supported same-sex marriage, one of the lowest in the nation. 55% were opposed.According to a 2018 survey by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, 56% of the Campeche public opposed same-sex marriage. This was the third highest among Mexico's states, after Chiapas and neighboring Tabasco.