Chihuahua already allows same-sex couples to marry without going to court. Aguascalientes does too after a Supreme Court ruling. Yet both states still carry civil-code language written for heterosexual marriage, and Chihuahua’s Congress has now ended its ordinary period without voting on a reform. The gap is not about whether couples can marry today. It is about whether lawmakers will replace legal text that the courts have already rejected.
Chihuahua ends session with same-sex marriage reform still pending
Chihuahua’s Congress ended its ordinary session without voting on a marriage equality reform, leaving Chihuahua and Aguascalientes as the only Mexican states where the civil-code rewrite remains pending after years of court rulings and administrative workarounds.
The missed vote came after the reform had cleared the state Congress’s Equality Commission, and supporters expected it to reach the floor. Instead, lawmakers closed the period without a vote, keeping the measure outside the state’s formal code.
This is a legal mismatch, not a ban at the registry counter. Same-sex couples can marry in Chihuahua without filing an amparo. The state government said in 2017 that the Civil Registry could not refuse those marriages. Then-Gov. Javier Corral said he had instructed the registry that “por ningún motivo se podría negar el matrimonio a personas del mismo sexo,” according to a state government statement.
A current registry official in Ciudad Juárez gave the same account this week. Karla Gutiérrez Isla, head of the Civil Registry there, said same-sex couples do not need amparos or separate requirements and may marry under the same basic rules as any other civil marriage. She said 15 such marriages had been performed in Juárez so far this year.
The statutes still tell another story
The tension sits in the printed civil codes. Chihuahua’s current Civil Code still defines marriage in Article 134 as an agreement between a man and a woman and includes procreation in the wording. In Aguascalientes, Article 143 of the Civil Code still prints the phrase “de un solo hombre y una sola mujer” and “perpetuar la especie,” though the code also carries a note saying the Supreme Court invalidated those portions in 2019.
The Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage-equality jurisprudence held that state laws are unconstitutional when they tie marriage to procreation or define it only as a union between a man and a woman. In Aguascalientes, the Court went further in Acción de Inconstitucionalidad 40/2018, invalidating the restrictive parts of the state code and ordering that marriage and concubinage rules be read to include couples of the same or different sex.
That is why the remaining dispute is about legislation. In Chihuahua, registry practice rests on Supreme Court doctrine and executive instruction, while the state code still carries text that advocates say should have been removed years ago.
A delayed vote after public pressure
The latest push followed protests inside and outside the Chihuahua Congress. Activists demanded that a Civil Code reform reach the floor before the ordinary session ended. At one demonstration, the Comité de la Diversidad Sexual de Chihuahua said “no estamos peleando un privilegio, estamos peleando por un derecho,” during a protest over the stalled bill.
Karla Arvizo, the committee’s president, has described the executive order as vulnerable because another governor could try to modify or revoke it. She said lawmakers were turning the issue into political currency. “Don’t use us as bargaining chips,” she said in comments about the delayed vote.
The bill was expected to be discussed during a session in Ciudad Juárez, then pushed to the capital. Lawmakers did not take up the measure before the period closed. A related account of the final day said that 31 items were left without a vote, with the leadership arguing there were no conditions in place to proceed.
Chihuahua and Aguascalientes are now outliers
The national map shifted again after Guanajuato wrote equal marriage into law in December 2025. That left Chihuahua and Aguascalientes as the remaining states where marriage equality is recognized in effect, while statutory reform still lags.
Mexico’s broader LGBTQ-rights record remains uneven. Courts and state offices may recognize one right while other procedures, enforcement rules, or local codes fall behind. That same gap has appeared in recent coverage of Mexico’s LGBTQ rights landscape, especially around family law and identity documents.
In Aguascalientes, the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling has legal force, and the code itself recognizes its invalidity. In Chihuahua, the immediate pressure is legislative. The next step would require lawmakers to bring the reform back in a special session or at a later time and vote on language that replaces the old definition with one that covers two people.
No recorded vote was taken before the ordinary period ended.
