The Supreme Court of Mexico [official website, in Spanish] struck down [press release, in Spanish] language in a Jalisco state law on Tuesday defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. The ruling effectively ends the same-sex marriage ban in one of the largest states in the country and allows for same-sex couples to register for marriage licenses immediately. Previously same-sex couples would have to sue [AP report] for the right to marry as courts decided each case because the state laws still determined marriage criteria. Last year the court ruled same-sex marriage bans were unconstitutional, but the ruling carried no weight to impact state laws. The court stated that in unanimously declaring this provision of Jalisco’s civil code unconstitutional, it concluded that the law stood against individual liberty and the freedom of independent personal development of each individual and that it violated the principal of equality by treating same-sex couples differently.

The issue of same sex marriage continues to be a controversial international issue. Earlier this month Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore instructed [JURIST report] state judges not to issue same-sex marriage licenses [order] because the Alabama Supreme Court [official website] had previously ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is legal. A same-sex couple in Northern Ireland filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in November to challenge the same-sex marriage ban, arguing that reducing their marriage to a civil partnership is unlawful discrimination. The same month, the Constitutional Court of Colombia [official website, in Spanish] ruled that same-sex couples can legally adopt children because allowing [JURIST report] same-sex couples to form a family upholds equality and is in the best interest of children and teens.