What would have been the first legal same-sex wedding in Baja California, a city hall ceremony carried that was mandated by Mexico's Supreme Court, was thwarted again yesterday, according to U-T San Diego Sandra Dibble and Mexican news reports. The couple, Fernando Urias, 37, and Victor Manuel Aguirre, 43, have been trying to get married legally in Mexicaly since 2013, and their Saturday Jan. 10 weddig had been scheduled with the city's civil registry for weeks.
But when the men arrived at Mexicali City Hall, the doors were shut, and wedding was cancelled because, reports Dibble, Angelica Guadalupe Gonzalez Sanchez, president of the Coalition of Baja California Families, complained that the two men "suffer from madness."
Gonzales gives couples mandatory pre-marital prior to their civil weddings and said the duo was "aggressive and impertinent" after she refused to certify that they had attended their pre-marital talk because they were not a heterosexual couple.
The counselor wasn't the only naysayer, though. Several Evangelical and Catholic protesters--many wearing masks emblazoned with "only a man and a woman" -- greeted the men. This is one of several hoops that Urias and Aguirre have jumped through on the path to legal marriage. Two months ago local officials refused to marry them, claiming "unresolved paperwork issues."
While city officials now say that the matter must move to state family court, Mexicali city council member Abraham Medina, told Dibble, "I think it's nothing more than an excuse. ... They're just doing this to buy time. I don't know why they are making these people go through this torment."
The men told reporters they weren't going to give up, though. Urias said, "One day, their tricks will end, and we will never get tired of trying."
