Same-sex marriage in Jalisco


Same-sex marriage is legal in the Mexican state of Jalisco, following a unanimous ruling on 26 January 2016 by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. However, some municipalities refused to marry same-sex couples until being ordered by Congress to do so, which happened on 12 May 2016. Civil unions for same-sex couples had also been legal in Jalisco since 1 January 2014 following approval of a law allowing such unions by Congress in October 2013, but this law was struck down on procedural grounds in September 2018.

Civil unions

In April 2013, deputies of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, Institutional Revolutionary Party, Ecologist Green Party of Mexico, Citizens' Movement and an independent deputy presented the Free Coexistence Act to Congress. The Act established that same-sex civil unions can be performed in the state, as long as they are not considered marriages. It did not legalize adoption and mandated that civil unions be performed with a civil law notary. On 31 October 2013, the Congress of Jalisco approved the Act in a 20-15 vote, one abstained and three were absent. The law took effect on 1 January 2014.
Political partyMembersYesNoAbstainAbsent
Institutional Revolutionary Party171511
National Action Party13112
Party of the Democratic Revolution22
Ecologist Green Party of Mexico11
Citizens' Movement5131
Independent11
Total39201513

On 13 September 2018, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation struck down the law on procedural grounds.

Marriage

After filing for an injunction, a lesbian couple was able to become the first same-sex couple to marry in the state on 14 December 2013. In December 2013, 12 couples of the same sex—eight women and four men—filed an injunction after each of their requests for a marriage license was denied. The injunction was granted on 12 June 2014.
In January 2014, a male couple went to the Civil Registry in Guadalajara and were denied a marriage license based on Article 258 of the State Civil Code, which limited marriage to one man and one woman. They filed for an injunction in the Fourth District Court. On 8 January 2015, because Guadalajara municipal officials had challenged the injunction, the case was elevated to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. The couple received the injunction, but still contested the constitutionality of Jalisco's Civil Code. The SCJN announced on 15 April 2015 that it would review article 258 of the State Civil Code which described marriage as "an institution of public character and social interest, through which a man and a woman decide to share a state of life in search of personal fulfillment and the foundation of a family". On 24 March 2014, ten same-sex couples went to the registry office in Guadalajara, and were each denied their request for a marriage license. With the support of CLADEM, they filed for an injunction.
In June 2014, PRI Congressman Héctor Pizano Ramos introduced legislation to amend the Civil Code of Jalisco to legalize same-sex marriage. After a national ruling from the SCJN labeling all bans and heterosexual definitions of marriage unconstitutional on 12 June 2015, it was announced on 17 June 2015 that Jalisco would begin work on amending the Civil Code after the ruling's official publication in the judicial gazette. On 26 November 2015, the First Chamber of the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice declared an article of the Jalisco Civil Code, which prevented same-sex marriage, unconstitutional. The issue was then sent to the plenary which held a first hearing on 21 January 2016.
On 26 January 2016, the Mexican Supreme Court voted unanimously to declare the Civil Code unconstitutional for limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. Since at least 8 of the 11 Justices ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, the articles mentioned in Jalisco's Civil Code would be struck down once the ruling was published in the judicial gazette and a new gender-neutral text from the Court would override the existing text upon publication in Jalisco's state gazette and the federal gazette. Following all three publications, civil registries in the state would be ordered to marry all couples. In the meantime, the mayors of Guadalajara, Tlaquepaque and Zapopan ordered the civil registries in their jurisdictions to start marrying same-sex couples. On 21 April 2016, the Supreme Court ruling was printed in the Official Diary of the Mexican Federation. On 23 April, the ruling was published in Jalisco's state gazette.
In March 2016, Puerto Vallarta's Civil Registry told the media that the Jalisco State Civil Registry Directory had changed all marriage licenses to gender-neutral on 22 March 2016 and that couples could already begin receiving them. Mayor Arturo Dávalos Peña officiated the weddings of two same-sex couples on 20 April 2016, which were the first same-sex marriages recorded in the resort city.
On 12 May 2016, the Congress of Jalisco instructed all of the state's municipalities to perform same-sex marriages. According to a local LGBT group, four municipalities were known to have refused to marry at least one same-sex couple following the Supreme Court ruling in January.
The Supreme Court ruling also struck down the state's same-sex adoption ban. As of May 2016, the municipality of Guadalajara had already received five applications of adoption by same-sex couples.
While same-sex marriage has been legal since 2016, the unconstitutional ban on such marriages has not yet been repealed from state law. On 29 June 2017, Deputy Claudia Delgadillo González introduced to Congress a new bill modifying articles 258, 260 and 267 of the Civil Code, removing the heterosexual definition of marriage and inserting a gender-neutral definition.

Statistics

The following table shows the number of same-sex marriages performed in Jalisco 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 Jalisco residents supported same-sex marriage. 54% were opposed.
According to a 2018 survey by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, 34% of the Jalisco public opposed same-sex marriage, the sixth lowest in Mexico after Mexico City, Baja California, Sonora, Querétaro, and México.