Que bueno

By Mustang Bobby

The Mexican Supreme Court has ruled that banning marriage equality is “discriminatory and unconstitutional.”

The ruling not only makes a strong statement about Mexican law’s treatment of equal protection guarantees, it also relies heavily on civil rights rulings handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Although several justices of the American court take pride in not caring what foreign courts say, any who read the Mexican decision will find the court makes an impassioned case for the United States to follow its lead. 

Writing for a unanimous tribunal, Minister Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea invoked the U.S. cases Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. Board of Education to argue for marriage equality in a way that American activists would be overjoyed to see from a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

This does not, however, make marriage equality the law of the land in Mexico.

Unlike in the United States, it takes more than one ruling from Mexico’s Supreme Court to strike down a law—the court must rule the same way in five separate cases before a law falls. This ruling concerns three separate cases; it will take two more for any same-sex couple in Oaxaca to be able to wed easily, and then the process may have to be repeated in other states. But this precedent means this is a procedural issue, not a legal one.

It’s a small step, but it’s a very good start. Felicitaciones y buena suerte.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)