Mexican Governor Emilio Gonzalez Apologizes For Gay-Marriage-Is-'Gross' Remark

PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 15, 2010

The governor of the Mexican state of Jalisco, Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, 

has apologized for saying that gay marriage is “gross,” El Informador

 reported.

Speaking at a forum on family in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco,

 Gonzalez Marquez said: “Marriage is a man and a woman … the other

 [gay marriage], as they say, still grosses me out.”

On Thursday, the president of the Human Rights Commission, Felipe 

de Jesus Alvarez Cibrian, said that Gonzalez Marquez had apologized

 for the remark in a letter addressed to the commission. The governor

 said he did not mean to offend anyone.

Gonzalez Marquez, a member of the nation's conservative National Action

 Party (PAN), was among the governors who, along with the country's 

attorney general, filed a challenge to Mexico City's groundbreaking gay

 marriage law, arguing that it was detrimental to children. The nation's

 highest court, however, found the law – and its provision that allows gay 

couples to adopt – to be constitutional, and ruled that all states must

 recognize the gay marriages performed in the capital.

Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of

 Guadalajara who shares a close relationship with the governor, was

 among the dignitaries present to hear Gonzalez Marquez's speech.

The Roman Catholic Church harshly criticized the law, but Sandoval

 Iniguez created a firestorm of controversy when he used the word

 “fags” in accusing Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of bribing the court 

to rule in the city's favor.

Speaking in Aguascalientes, Sandoval Iniguez said the court would not have

 reach such an “absurd” conclusion unless it was motivated by a large sum of money.

“I do not know of any of you who would like to be adopted by a pair of 

lesbians or a pair of fags,” he said. “I think not.”

Ebrard responded by filing a defamation suit against Cardinal Sandoval

 Iniguez.

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF