President Enrique Peña Nieto proposes legalisation of same-sex marriage in Mexico

Mexico would become the fifth Latin American country to legalise same-sex marriage if adopted into law

Enrique Peña Nieto/Twitter

President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed that same-sex marriage be legalised in Mexico, following a progressive move in the country toward marriage equality.

Mr Peña Nieto announced his proposal at a Tuesday event marking the national day against homophobia. After meeting with LGBTI groups, he said, the president said he signed initiatives that would secure marriage equality in the Mexican Constitution.

"I reiterated the commitment of the [Mexican government] to combat all forms of discrimination, including the motivated by sexual preferences #SinHomofobia," he tweeted.

Mexico legalised same-sex marriage in 2009, and four of the country's 31 states have followed suit - although Campeche, the latest state to adopt marriage equality laws, has not yet implemented them, the AFP reports.

The Mexican Supreme Court ruled that bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional in June 2015. That did not bring forth an official legalisation throughout the country, however.

To the contrary, Estefanía Vela, a law scholar at a university in Mexico City, said that because all of the states had not legalised same-sex marriage did not necessarily mean it was illegal.

“Without a doubt, gay marriage is legal everywhere," Ms Vela told the New York Times last year. "If a same-sex couple comes along and the code says marriage is between a man and a woman and for the purposes of reproduction, the court says, ‘Ignore it, marriage is for two people'.”

Mexico would become the fifth Latin American country to legalise same-sex marriage, should the country enact the president's proposal.

Colombia legalised same-sex marriage in April.