On Thursday Mexico City will bask — for better or worse — in the frontline of the gay rights movement and ire of the Catholic Church when a city law legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption goes into effect.

The Catholic Church is vehemently opposed to day marriage, as it is abortion. Whether the Church and Mixico City’s conservative National Action Party (PAN) will effectively thwart legal gay marriage, as they have legal abortion, will unfold.

After a national right abortions bill was passed in Mexico, states altered their laws to say that life begins at conception.

Because the federal district of Mexico City passes its own laws, it sits in the forefront of progressive politics, according to MSNBC.

The Legislative Assembly passed the gay marriage act by a broad majority in December, as activists cheered and PAN representatives looked on in dismay. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, a PRD leader, signed the bill into law — a first in Latin America.

“The family is under attack,” warned Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera, saying that the “perverse” measure would inflict psychological damage on “innocent children.”

The initiative joins Mexico City to other countries in Latin America seeking to legalize marriage for gays. Anne