MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Legislators are drafting a bill that would legally
                  recognize gay unions and allow gay couples to adopt children in the Western
                  Hemisphere's largest city -- a controversial move for this predominantly Catholic,
                  socially conservative country.

                  Lawmakers from the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, the party of Mexico
                  City's mayor, are working in conjunction with gay and lesbian rights groups to
                  put finishing touches on the legislation. They plan to submit the measure next
                  Tuesday, a spokesman for the legislative commission that introduced it said
                  Thursday.

                  "It is very significant from our point of view to advance the human and civil
                  rights of these people that are supposedly born free and equal under the
                  constitution," Armando Quintero, Democratic Revolution leader in the legislature,
                  was quoted by the Reforma newspaper as saying.

                  "There now exists legal discrimination that prevents them from uniting in a definitive manner
                  and having the same rights as the rest of the citizens."

                  Quintero could not be reached by The Associated Press for comment Thursday.

                  It was not immediately clear what chances the bill had of passing, but apparently
                  it already is creating waves among other lawmakers from the Institutional
                  Revolutionary Party, or PRI, Mexico's former ruling party, and the socially
                  conservative National Action Party of President Vicente Fox, which unseated the
                  PRI for the first time in 71 years.

                  No party has a majority in the 66-seat assembly for the independent federal
                  district: Democratic Revolution holds 19 seats, the PAN has 17 and the PRI, 16.

                  Mexico is a predominantly Catholic country in which open homosexuality is still
                  not widely accepted.

                  During his campaign, Fox's party aired a negative TV ad that used a Mexican
                  slang term for someone of undefined sexuality while showing Fox's rival hugging
                  and lifting a colleague by the thighs.

                  Fox quickly withdrew the ad and his party soon thereafter published a
                  newspaper ad defending itself to the gay community, the first time a major
                  political party has done so.

                  The party is "not against the gay community in any way," the ad said. "In a Fox
                  administration, there will be freedom for people to live without masks."

                  Fox's party is conservative in other ways: Party legislators in the central state of
                  Guanajuato approved a measure in August prohibiting abortion in cases of rape.
                  The governor vetoed it after a poll showed a majority of the public opposed it.

                  The action prompted then-Mexico City Mayor Rosario Robles, also of the
                  Democratic Revolution Party, to introduce a measure loosening restrictions on
                  abortion in this city of 8 million people.

                  The assembly then in power passed the measure. A new legislature is in session
                  now.

                  The proponents of the gay-rights legislation for Mexico City don't refer to gay
                  "marriage" per say, but instead are modeling their resolution after European
                  initiatives that allow "civil solidarity," a legally recognized union.

                  Gay unions are legal in several European countries including Denmark, Sweden,
                  the Netherlands and Iceland. Finland is in the process of passing such legislation.

                  Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.