Same-sex marriage in Veracruz

The Constitution of Veracruz does not expressly prohibit same-sex marriages, neither does it explicitly recognize them. Article 6 of the Constitution states that "the State will promote the necessary conditions for the full enjoyment of liberty, equality, security and non-discrimination of the people",[lower-alpha 1] adding that the State shall respect family privacy.

Legislation for civil unions was first proposed in the state of Veracruz in 2014. In March 2014, Deputy Cuauhtémoc Pola Estrada from Citizens' Movement presented an initiative for a partnership law to the Congress of Veracruz, but no legislative action occurred.[5] Due to the lack of action on the bill, Pola Estrada introduced to Congress on 31 July 2014 an initiative to amend article 75 of the Civil Code to legalize same-sex marriage.[6] In September 2014, he confirmed that the bill was still awaiting reviews by committees.[7]

In April 2015, citing disappointment with the stalled bill, the president of the State Human Rights Commission announced his intention to hand Congress a new bill to legalize same-sex marriage.[8] In July 2016, Deputy Mónica Robles Barajas from the Ecologist Green Party submitted another initiative to legalize same-sex marriage.[9] These proposals have seen very little legislative progress due to opposition from the National Action Party (PAN).[10]

In April 2017, the Civil Registry of Xalapa announced its support for same-sex marriage.[11]

In July 2018, as one of its last actions before leaving office, PAN submitted a proposal to Congress to explicitly ban same-sex marriage in the state Constitution. It failed to pass, with 32 deputies in favor, 10 against and 2 absentions. It needed 33 votes to pass, thus failing by one vote.[12] The July 2018 elections resulted in the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) winning the majority of legislative seats in Congress and the governorship. MORENA's party platform includes support for LGBT rights and same-sex marriage.

On 28 May 2020, behind closed doors because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Congress of Veracruz passed a cohabitation bill by a vote of 35–12. The bill grants cohabitating couples, different-sex or same-sex, the same rights, benefits and obligations as married couples.[13][14] The law was published in the official state journal on 10 June,[15] following the signature of Governor Cuitláhuac García Jiménez, and went into effect the following day. The legislation defines cohabitation as follows:

• in Spanish: El concubinato es la unión de hecho entre dos personas, sin que exista un contrato entre ellos, ambos se encuentren libres de matrimonio y que deciden compartir la vida para apoyarse mutuamente.
• (Cohabitation is the de facto union between two people, without a contract between them, both being free from marriage and deciding to share their lives in order to support each other.)

Political party	Members	Yes	No	Abstain	Absent
National Regeneration Movement	29	26	1	1	1
National Action Party	13	2	11
Institutional Revolutionary Party	3	3
Citizens' Movement	2	2
Party of the Democratic Revolution	1	1
Ecologist Green Party of Mexico	1	1
Social Encounter Party	1			1
Total	50	35	12	2	1

A decision of the Mexican Supreme Court on 12 June 2015 resulted in a ruling which found that state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional nationwide. The court's ruling is considered a "jurisprudential thesis" and did not invalidate any state laws, meaning same-sex couples denied the right to wed would still have to seek individual injunctions (amparo) in court. The ruling standardized the procedures for judges and courts throughout Mexico to approve all applications for same-sex marriages and made the approval mandatory.

In February 2014, couple Javier Darío Olivares García and Víctor Manuel Durán Sáenz applied for a marriage license at the Civil Registry in Heroica Veracruz. After being rejected, they filed for an injunction in court, which was granted by a federal judge on 22 July 2014.[16][17] Despite the approval, the registrar refused to schedule a ceremony for the couple. After presenting their injunction to the registrar in Boca del Río, the marriage was scheduled for 6 December 2014. Their wedding, which was the first same-sex marriage in the state of Veracruz, was conducted at the Civil Registry on 6 December.[18]

On 29 January 2015, a local LGBT group, Comunidad Jarochos, announced that a lesbian couple had won an injunction and would marry on 4 April 2015.[19] It also announced that there were 8 pending injunctions in the state.[20] On 16 May 2016, the group announced that four same-sex couples had filed for an injunction.[21] On 26 May 2016, the injunctions of three more same-sex couples (two lesbian couples and one male couple) were granted, taking the number of granted injunctions in the state to seven.[22]

A lawsuit challenging the state's same-sex marriage ban was filed on 20 July 2017 before the Fourth District Court.[23][24] On 7 November 2017, Judge José Arquímedes Gregorio Loranca Luna, issuing a ruling in the case, declared the state's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.[25] Guillermo Izacur Maldonado, president of Comunidad Jarochos, a local LGBT group, argued that the ruling was a "general injunction" that covers every same-sex couple in the state and that same-sex marriage should thus effectively be legal in the state as a result of this court decision.[26] However, state officials announced they would continue to enforce the state's same-sex marriage ban despite the court ruling.[27]

18 same-sex marriages had been performed in Veracruz by August 2017.[28] By early 2019, that number had increased to 69,[29] and to 150 by July 2020.[30]

On 28 May 2020, the Congress of Veracruz amended state family law to recognize same-sex cohabitation but while doing so did not repeal the state's ban on same-sex marriage. Shortly following the law's publication in the official state journal on 10 June, the National Human Rights Commission filed an action of unconstitutionality (acción de inconstitucionalidad; docketed 144/2020) against the state of Veracruz, contesting the constitutionality of the new cohabitation law and various articles of the Civil Code that ban same-sex marriage.[31] This lawsuit seeks to fully legalize same-sex marriage in the state, similarly to what had happened in numerous other states, including Jalisco (case 28/2015), Chiapas (case 32/2016), Puebla (case 29/2016), Aguascalientes (case 40/2018) and Nuevo León (case 29/2018). A ruling in the case is expected for mid-2021.