Gay Marraige/Adoption in Mexico

[cassen_grrrl]

Mexico is much farther ahead of the U.S. now when it comes to these simple civil rights of marraige and adoption for same sex couples. The Supreme Court of Mexico just ruled that same-sex marraige, which is legal in Mexico City MUST be recognized by every other state in the country. So, even if same-sex couples can't marry in their home city or

Comments

[kris_schnee]

The states were intended to have most of the power, and lawfully still have it; see Amendment X in particular. Remember that when our Supreme Court wrote the Dred Scott decision, basically legalizing slavery throughout the Union, that was the feds ordering all states to submit to a national policy despite many of the states having outlawed slavery. Giving all power to the central government just means that when idiots get into office, they can force their will on everyone at once and no one has the freedom to disagree in peace.

Is it good to force private citizens to accept a gay couple for (say) insurance purposes, against popular belief about the meaning of marriage? The policy you described would mean that if Mexico City legalized slavery, you'd have to help enforce the city's fugitive slave law. Or, if Mexico City legalized cocaine, you'd have to accept drug dealers in your city.

[cassen_grrrl]

Maybe instead of saying the states in the US have too much power, I should say they have some of the wrong powers. Some things that are left up to states should be federalized like marraige laws and education. It helps the country to be more of a union instead of many little contries together. The civil war was really about state rights vs. federal rights rather than just slavery.

Same-sex marraige is about civil rights. You can't compare it to slavery which goes against civil rights or legalizing drugs which is something else altogether and would actually take power away from drug dealers. It IS good to foce private citizens to accept that every person have the same civil rights and not be discriminated against. Much of the beliefs and meaning of marraige in come from religious organizations, and they have no business being in government. Another good thing about Mexico is that they really DO keep the church and the state separate, whereas in the US people have forgotten the meaning of separation of church and state.

[mexwerewolf]

I will jump here just for a clarification. Our constitution (Mexican constitution, that is) establishes that civil status acts (like adoption, marriage, birth, adoption, etc.) that occur in any state of Mexico (including Mexico City) will be recognized by the rest of the states.

So this doesn't mean that drugs could become legalized nationwide just because one state chooses to. As of slavery, I really doubt it will ever happen because slavery was never allowed in Mexico.

[kris_schnee]

I know basically nothing about Mexico's Constitution, so I defer to you on that. My reaction was to the original post, to mean that centralizing government control over social policy is a very dangerous idea even if you think you're imposing a good policy. Leaving slavery aside, which our Supreme Court basically forced onto the free states at one point, cassen_grrrl mentioned education. If we put that under federal control in the US, at some point we'd elect Creationist politicians and force "Intelligent Design" into everybody's bio classes. I'd rather see that kind of foolishness left to individual states! Fortunately, our own Constitution gives the feds no power over education. Unfortunately, that Constitution is dead.