Mexico City legalizes gay marriage

Mexico City became the second North American capital and the first ever Latin American city to legalize gay marriage today: 

The bill passed the capital’s local assembly 39-20 to the cheers of supporters who yelled, "Yes, we could! Yes, we could!"

Leftist Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of the Democratic Revolution Party is widely expected to sign the measure into law.

The bill calls for changing the definition of marriage in the city’s civil code. Marriage is currently defined as the union of a man and a woman. The new definition will be "the free uniting of two people."

In recent years, Mexican politics have increasingly been defined by the kind of social and cultural disputes that the U.S. has long wrestled with. Alexis Okeowo profiled the country’s ongoing abortion war for FP last week.