Mexico City legalized gay marriage late last year, becoming the city in Latin America to do so.
Lots of gay couples near Canada already go there to get married. I expect same sex couples in southwestern states to head to Mexico for the same reason. But will their Mexico gay marriage be legally recognized when they come back?
It depends on where they live. If they’re from one of the six jurisdictions that allow gay marriage–Iowa, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, D.C.–then their marriage from Mexico will be recognized. But if they’re from one of those places, they probably aren’t going to trek to Mexico to get married anyway.
The only other places that will recognize a gay marriage from Mexico City are California and New York, both of which passed laws last year to recognize same sex marriages from other jurisdictions.
New Yorkers live pretty far from Mexico, so I don’t expect to see many of them head down to Mexico just to get married, especially when they live next door to three states that where they could do the same.
For Californians, on the other hand, Mexico City legalizing gay marriage means there’s now a relatively easy way to get gay marriage rights. The combination of Mexico City’s new gay marriage law and California’s new recognition law means that all a gay couple in California has to do to get marriage rights is take a day trip to Mexico. Mexico City lets U.S. residents get married there as long as they bring the right paperwork.
Thank you for this helpful information, I appreciate it. But I do want to clarify this would not be the same as marriage rights as the states cannot allow immigration rights. So, my partner (from South America) could not get a green card this way as straight people can do quite easily.
I’ve found that many foreigners had chosen Mexico City for their same sex wedding, but many think that it’s very ‘Vegas style’, the process can take up to 40 days, and there’s a few paperwork to consider. Still it’s smooth if you know your ways around in the city and you come down prepared. Doesn’t matter if your not mexican or both of you are not mexican.
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