Same-sex marriage in Jalisco

After filing for an injunction, Zaira Viridiana de la O Gómez and Martha Sandoval were able to become the first same-sex couple to marry in the state on 14 December 2013.[8] In December 2013, 12 couples of the same sex—eight women and four men—filed an injunction after their requests for marriage licenses were rejected. The injunction was granted on 12 June 2014.[9]

Same-sex unions performed in Mexican states

  Same-sex marriages performed.*
Stripes: Proportion of municipal coverage.

  Civil unions performed; marriage by amparo only.

  Marriage not performed (except by amparo) despite Supreme Court order.

  Marriage accessible by amparo or by traveling out of state.

*Legislation is not equal in all states. See details.

In January 2014, a male couple sought a marriage certificate at the Civil Registry in Guadalajara, but were rejected based on articles 258, 260 and 267bis of the state's Civil Code. They filed for an injunction in the Fourth District Court.[10] 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 (SCJN).[11] The couple was granted the injunction, but still contested the constitutionality of the three articles.[12] Article 258 of the Civil Code 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". Article 260 stated that "the man and the woman" had to be at least sixteen years old, and article 267bis required "the man and the woman" to have completed premarital counseling.[13] On 26 November 2015, the First Chamber of the Mexican Supreme Court declared the three articles unconstitutional.[14][15]

On 24 March 2014, ten same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses at the registry office in Guadalajara,[16][17] but were rejected. With the support of CLADEM, they filed for an injunction in court.[18]

In June 2014, Deputy Héctor Pizano Ramos from the Institutional Revolutionary Party introduced legislation to Congress to legalize same-sex marriage.[19] After a national ruling from the SCJN labeling all bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional on 12 June 2015, state deputies announced on 17 June that they would renew their efforts to amend the Civil Code after the ruling's official publication in the judicial gazette.[20]

On 4 May 2015, the National Human Rights Commission filed an action of unconstitutionality (acción de inconstitucionalidad; docketed 28/2015) against the state of Jalisco, contesting the constitutionality of articles 258, 260 and 267bis. The Congress of Jalisco had recently amended state family law but while doing so did not repeal the state's ban on same-sex marriage. The Commission took this opportunity to file the action of unconstitutionality.

On 26 January 2016, the Mexican Supreme Court voted unanimously to declare the three articles in question unconstitutional, holding that banning same-sex couples from marrying violates Articles 1 and 4 of the Constitution of Mexico. The articles were struck down upon the ruling's publication in the judicial gazette and a new gender-neutral text from the court overrode the existing text upon publication in Jalisco's state gazette and the federal gazette. Following all three publications, civil registries in the state were ordered to marry all couples.[21][22] Prior to the publication date, the mayors of Guadalajara, Tlaquepaque and Zapopan had ordered the civil registries in their jurisdictions to start marrying same-sex couples.[23] On 21 April 2016, the Supreme Court ruling was printed in the Official Journal of the Federation (Diario Oficial de la Federación),[24] and on 23 April the ruling was published in Jalisco's state gazette.[25]

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 and that couples could already begin receiving them.[26] 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.[27]

On 12 May 2016, the Congress of Jalisco instructed all of the state's municipalities to enforce the Supreme Court ruling and perform same-sex marriages.[28] 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 (La Barca, Ocotlán, Santa María de los Ángeles and Tepatitlán).[29]

The Supreme Court ruling also struck down the state's same-sex adoption ban.[24][30] By May 2016, the municipality of Guadalajara had received five applications of adoption by same-sex couples.[29]

On 29 June 2017, Deputy Claudia Delgadillo González introduced to Congress a bill to reflect the Supreme Court ruling by modifying articles 258, 260 and 267bis of the Civil Code, removing the heterosexual definition of marriage and inserting a gender-neutral definition.[31]

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.[32]