Activists are optimistic that efforts to allow same-sex Sonoran couples to easily marry could soon bear fruit.
Last fall, a reform measure that would bring the state’s laws into compliance with a 2015 Supreme Court ruling fell one vote short of making it out of committee. But now its sponsor, Deputy Yumiko Palomarez, is demanding it be heard again before the current session ends in August.
This time it would likely be in person, making alleged technical difficulties that prevented a key deputy’s vote unlikely. And even if that legislative path fails again, there’s an active court case that could force the congress’ hand, as recently occurred in neighboring Sinaloa.
“From the conversations I’ve had with the deputy, and the lobbying she’s done, she says there’s a very high chance of it being approved,” said Moises Barraza is the sexual diversity liaison for Palomarez’s party Morena in Sonora. “I’m talking about 80 or 90 percent that it gets done and we have marriage equality.”
But if it fails again, he said a recently elected legislator for the next Congress has already vowed to take it up.
