A Mexican congresswoman has reportedly declared gay people should not be able to marry because they “don’t face each other during sex”.
Ana María Jiménez Ortiz, of Mexico’s PAN political party, is alleged to have made her comments during a forum on whether to legalise gay marriage in the state of Puebla.
“A marriage should only be considered amongst people that can look at each other in the eye while having sexual intercourse,” she said, according to the Latin Times.
She continued: “Something that does not happen in homosexual couples.”
Ortiz is also reported to have cited a now widely discredited study, which suggested children of gay parents experienced more difficulties than those born to heterosexual couples, the Independent writes.
The July 2012 paper, by sociologist Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas, claimed to have scientific evidence that same sex families harm children.
Following criticism of her remarks, Ortiz made a statement on her Twitter account before making it private, SDP Noticias reported
It said: “I made clear my position on the issues in a respectful manner and with conviction, it is the only way we will come to common ground on these important issues.
“I’m sorry that my participation was taken out of context and doesn’t sum up the explanation that I made and that this has generated a series of attacks towards me on social networks, from people that unfortunately were not there and only have information from one source.”
Currently, Mexican same-sex marriages are allowed in Mexico City, the southern state of Oaxaca and the state of Quintana Roo, home to the resort city of Cancun. The northern state of Coahuila began allowing same-sex civil unions in 2007.
In July, lawmakers in Mexico's western state of Colima approved a change in the state's constitution that legalises same-sex civil unions, the Associated Press reported.