MEXICO CITY , FIRST CITY IN LATIN AMERICA TO LEGALISE GAY MARRIAGE

Lawmakers in Mexico City have passed legislation paving the way for the Mexican capital to become the first city in Latin America to legalise gay marriage.

In a vote on Monday the city's government passed a bill changing the definition of marriage from a union of a man and a woman to a union of two people.
The changes will give gay couples more rights, including allowing them to adopt children.

• The city's leftist mayor, Marcelo Ebrard of the Democratic Revolution Party, was widely expected to sign the measure into law.
• However, the conservative Nation Action Party of Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, has vowed to challenge the gay marriage law in the courts.
• Many people in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America remain opposed to gay
• marriage, and the dominant Roman Catholic Church has announced its opposition.
• "They have given Mexicans the most bitter Christmas," said Armando Martinez, the president of the College of Catholic Attorneys.
• "They are permitting adoption [by gay couples] and in one stroke of the pen have erased the term 'mother' and 'father.'"
• But Victor Romo, a city lawmaker and a member of the mayor's party, called the vote an historic day.
• "For centuries unjust laws banned marriage between blacks and whites or Indians and Europeans," he said.

Source: The Agencies