MEXICALI, Baja California — A same-sex couple in Mexico was denied the right to marry on Saturday after a complaint alleged the couple suffers from insanity.
Victor Manuel Aguirrre and Fernando Urias — two hairstylists from Mexicali, the capital of the Mexican state of Baja California — have been trying to marry since June 2013 after a ruling earlier that year by Mexico’s Supreme Court that declared a same-sex marriage ban in another Mexico state as unconstitutional.
Last year, the high court struck down Baja California’s ban as well, but the couple has continued to be denied a marriage license.
On Saturday, the couple again returned to city hall for their marriage ceremony and were declined for the 4th time due to under a citizen’s allegation that the two men “suffer from madness.”
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The San Diego Union-Tribune reports:
Saturday’s ceremony had been on the civil registry’s calendar for weeks. Hours after a spokesman for the city had confirmed early in the day that the wedding would take place, a top city official said the event had been canceled due to a complaint that the two men “suffer from madness.”
The accuser was Angelica Guadalupe Gonzalez Sanchez, president of the Coalition of Baja California Families, who with her husband gives mandatory pre-marital talks to couples preparing for civil wedding ceremonies at Mexicali City Hall.
In her complaint, Gonzalez said the pair had been “aggressive and impertinent” on Thursday after she refused to certify their attendance in her talk, and her husband told them that the sessions were intended for heterosexual couples.
The cancellation came nearly two months after officials with Mexicali’s civil registry refused to perform a wedding ceremony for the couple, citing unresolved paperwork issues.
Same-sex marriages have been performed in Mexico since 2010, when Mexico City revised its civil code, and a state legislature followed suit last year in the state of Coahuila.
But in most of Mexico, same-sex couples continue to be denied marriage licenses and are waging battles through the court system.
An attorney for Aguirrre and Urias accused Mayor Jaime Díaz Ochoa of deliberately holding up the process, and said another 13 same-sex couples in Mexicali are going through the same legal route as his clients, asking the courts to uphold their right to marry.
