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Five of Mexico's 32 states have announced plans to challenge a measure that legalises gay marriage in the country's Supreme Court.
The action comes after Mexico City's leftist city assembly approved a gay marriage law on December 21, the first such measure passed anywhere in Latin America.
Powerful religious groups and conservatives, including from President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party (PAN), have loudly opposed gay marriages.
All five states -- Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Sonora and Tlaxcala -- have PAN governors.
PAN said in a statement late Tuesday that the states were taking action because the Mexico City law "could oblige the states to recognize and fully acknowledge the validity of marriage between people of the same sex."
Mexico's attorney general on January 28 appealed the gay marriage measure before the country's top court.
The first legal gay marriages are scheduled for March in Mexico City.
