Fridae

Mexico City has become the first capital in Latin America to allow same-sex marriage on Monday when city legislators passed a law giving gay couples full marriage rights and to adopt children.

Same-sex marriage supporters cheering the vote

Before Monday's vote, the city had already allowed same-sex civil unions under which they were eligible for a limited number of benefits. According to media reports, 680 couples have used the law since it went into effect in 2007.

The gay marriage bill passed the capital's local assembly with a vote of 39-20 with support from lawmakers from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), which has ruled Mexico's sprawling capital of about 20 million since 1997. The definition of marriage in the city's civil code will be changed from "a free union between a man and a woman" to "the free uniting of two people."

Under the new law, same-sex couples will have the right to adopt, inherit, obtain joint housing loans and share insurance policies.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of the PDR is widely expected to sign the bill into law even though the new law is strongly opposed by President Felipe Calderón of the conservative Nation Action Party and the dominant Roman Catholic Church.

Argentina became the first Latin American country to allow civil unions across the country by same-sex couples in 2002. But a push for full gay marriage hit a snag earlier this year when a court blocked a local judge in Buenos Aires who issued a marriage license to two men, defying a national ban. The couple has pledged to fight the court's ruling. Neighbouring Uruguay also allows gay civil unions and became the first country in Latin America to permit adoption by gay couples in September. The Mexican state of Coahuila and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul also allow civil unions for same-sex couples.