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Catholic Mexico’s Best Kept Secret

Free Love, Free Drugs, Abortion and Now Euthanasia

New America Media, Commentary, Louis E.V. Nevaer, Posted: May 24, 2007

NAM Editors Note: Emerging from seven decades of authoritarian rule, Mexican society has seen a relaxing of its once strictly conservative social mores. Even the Catholic church can do little to stop it argues NAM contributor Louis Nevaer…. Louis Nevaer is the author, most recently, of "HR and the New Hispanic Workforce," a book about Hispanics in the labor force.

This summer, Mexican legislatures will take up the issues of euthanasia, the decriminalization of possession of marijuana and cocaine for personal use, and the establishment of “sanctuary” cities for illegal immigrants from Central America.

Mexico, of course, is undergoing the cultural and social renaissance that Spain itself has undergone after the end of the stifling dictatorship of Francisco Franco. This time around, with Spain as example, gay couples can adopt and marry and women can have abortions (and the world doesn’t come to an end). All this is fueling an almost giddy atmosphere and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

Recently, almost 20,000 Mexicans stripped naked to pose in front of the Presidential Palace and National Cathedral, participating in the world’s largest naked art event and affirming Mexico’s new live-and-let-live social mores.

And it is the acclaim that Mexican art and culture is enjoying around the world that is emboldening the Mexican public. From Japan to Iran, Mexican artists are at the forefront of this loosening of mores. Tokyo residents are enjoying public sculptures by Mexican artists along their boulevards, just as thoroughfares in the Mexican city of Merida are graced by Japanese sculptures.

In Esfahan, Iran, cultural institutes are showcasing the works of contemporary Mexican painters while in Mexico, Persian silk carpets are on view.

In Los Angeles, an Oscar was awarded to Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Mexican actress-turned-producer Salma Hayek has a primetime hit on ABC (Ugly Betty).

In some ways, what would, in other countries, appear to be pioneering is mundane here. This month, Mexico held a “National Day Against Homophobia," but government officials acknowledge that the majority of Mexicans don’t care enough about anyone else’s sexual orientation enough to get worked up about it, not surprising in a country where gay and lesbian members of Congress have rainbow flags on their desks, one popular television host interviews guests in full drag, and cable television shows HBO-style nudity without much outcry.

Mexicans are astounded at the threats against U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama, since Mexico elected a black president (Vicente Guerrero) back in the mid-19th century, and a full-blooded Native American (Benito Juarez) governed as Abraham Lincoln’s contemporary. The matter of a mixed-race couple occupying the presidential palace was settled when Lazaro Cardenas was president in the late 1930s.

Although commentators have focused on vocal opposition from the Catholic Church, the greatest obstacle to the evolution of Mexican society is not the teachings of the Vatican (though overwhelmingly Catholic, Mexicans fought a revolution to separate church from state) but pressure from Washington.

When Chihuahua State attempted to decriminalize possession of marijuana for personal use in 2005, it was the Bush administration that pressured Mexican president Vicente Fox to intervene, arguing that such a step would be “a dangerous precedent.”

This time around, it is the Mexican legislature, in consultation with Canada, that is addressing the matter. Canada hopes that if Mexico begins the process of decriminalizing possession of marijuana and cocaine for personal use they might, as they did with Prohibition, make it impossible for the United States to stick to the status quo (If nothing else, it would be a boost to both Canadian and Mexican tourism if Americans were able to get away to get high).

More to the point, Mexican public opinion is being persuaded, in large part, by informed, televised debates, where authority after authority and expert after expert have reinforced the idea that banning something that consumers want creates an underground black market for such products, leading to increased criminal activity.

Against this social milieu, some Mexican legislators have suggested even more comprehensive reforms – should prostitution be legalized and regulated by the state? Is the notion of “human” rights itself "speciesist," since it denies fundamental rights to the animals with whom we share our lives? Who knows where this kind of giddy thinking could lead. In the future, could you marry your canine?

The Vatican made headlines last year when San Francisco’s then-Archbishop William Levada was appointed to “rethink” the Catholic Church’s understanding of limbo – the place where infants who die before being baptized go. Vatican officials decided unbaptized infants may go to heaven after all and not be consigned to “limbo” until the second coming of Christ.

In the suddenly hipster Mexico, such polemics pale in comparison where Mexican society is leading the charge. It’s enough to make thousands of people strip naked and jump up and down in the middle of one of the world’s largest public squares no more.