Gael Garcia supports the gays
Actor Gael Garcia Bernal joined other Mexican celebrities on Tuesday to voice support for Mexico City's new law legalising gay civil unions.
Garcia Bernal, actor Diego Luna and director Alfonso Cuaron were among 51 people who published a half-page open letter in local newspapers supporting the law passed this month by local lawmakers.
"The vote for the civil-unions law was a vote in favour of liberty, social equality and the strength of civil society," the artists wrote.
The law was signed last week by Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas and is due to go into effect in four months.
It allows same-sex couples living in Mexico City to register civil unions with authorities, granting them inheritance rights and other benefits typically given to spouses.
The conservative National Parents Union called the law "aberrant" and conservative groups have threatened a legal challenge. The Mexican Council of Bishops says it's the first step toward legalising gay marriage and adoption by gays, which it opposes.
Garcia Bernal, star of Amores Perros, Y Tu Mama Tambien and The Motorcycle Diaries, frequently weighs in on politics.
While promoting his new movie Babel, in which his character gets into trouble with US immigration authorities, he criticised a planned US fence along its border with Mexico as "absurd".
"In the personal, civic arena, I love entering into politics," he said Tuesday in an interview with the Televisa network.
Since February 4, 2006