Twenty of Mexico’s 31 states and the federal capital Mexico City have marriage equality and same-sex couples can marry in the other 11 states if they go to a federal judge and get a personalized injunction (amparo), a process that is time-consuming and requires paying a lawyer for help. The judge cannot refuse the amparo. The requirement on judges resulted from a 2015 ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) that declared all bans on marriage equality unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, however, has no power to end all states’ bans simultaneously, and can only force individual states’ bans out of existence in specific situations. The ruling says: “Marriage. The law of any federative entity that, on the one hand, considers that the purpose of it [marriage] is procreation and/or that defines it as that which is celebrated between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.” (“Matrimonio. La ley de cualquier entidad federativa que, por un lado, considere que la finalidad de aquél es la procreación y/o que lo defina como el que se celebra entre un hombre y una mujer, es inconstitucional.”)