Same-sex marriage has been legal in the Mexican state of Coahuila as of 17 September 2014, based on an effective date established by legislation passed on 1 September 2014. Prior to the law's passage, civil unions for same-sex couples were legal, but not same-sex marriage. The passage of the same-sex marriage bill made Coahuila the second jurisdiction in Mexico, and the first state (as Mexico City is a Federal District), to pass same-sex marriage via legislative means. Only Mexico City and the state of Quintana Roo allowed for same-sex marriage prior to Coahuila.
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Civil unions
The legalization of same-sex civil unions in Coahuila had started to be discussed as early as November 2006, simultaneously with the discussion then on-going in Mexico City.
On 11 January 2007, in a 20–13 the congress voted to legalize same-sex civil unions under the name Pacto Civil de Solidaridad (PCS, Civil Pact of Solidarity), which gave property and inheritance rights to same-sex couples. Similar to France's Pacte Civil de Solidarité and Germany's Eingetragene Lebenspartnerschaft.
"The PCS represented a sensible response to the existence of citizens who traditionally have been victims of discrimination, humiliation and abuse. This does not have to do with morality. It has to do with legality. As human beings, we have to protect them as they are. It has to do with civil liberty," said congresswoman Julieta López, who pushed the bill, of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose 19 members voted for the law. Luis Alberto Mendoza, deputy of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), which opposed, said the new law was an "attack against the family, which is society's natural group and is formed by a man and a woman." Other than that, the PCS drew little opposition. Bishop Raúl Vera, who headed the Catholic Diocese of Saltillo, declined to condemn the law. While Vera insisted that "two women or two men cannot get married," he also saw gay people as a vulnerable minority. "Today we live in a society that is composed in a different way. There are people who do not want to marry under the law or in the church. They need legal protection. I should not abandon these people." Unlike Mexico City's law, once same-sex couples have registered in Coahuila, the state protects their rights no matter where they live in the country. Twenty days after the law had passed, the country's first same-sex civil union took place in Saltillo, Coahuila. It was between 29-year-olds Karina Almaguer and Karla Lopez, a lesbian couple from Tamaulipas. Between 2007 and 2010, 196 same-sex couples had entered into a PCS, none of them had been annulled.
Same-sex marriage
On 5 March 2013, Congressman Samuel Acevedo Flores, Social Democratic Party, introduced a bill to the Congress of Coahuila to legalize same-sex marriages and adoption by same-sex couples. 11 February 2014, Congress approved adoptions by same-sex couples with a vote of 23 in favor and two against (National Action Party and Democratic Unity of Coahuila); however, debate on marriage equality continued. On 8 August 2014, the Congress in Saltillo again began discussions regarding same-sex marriage. The bill passed on 1 September 2014 making Coahuila the second district to reform its Civil Code and third jurisdiction where a couple may marry without an injunction. The law took effect on 17 September 2014, and the first couple married on 20 September.