‘I Hate the Hatred’: 12 Year Old in Mexico Blocking Anti-Gay Protestors Is Compared to ‘Tank Man’

‘I Have an Uncle Who Is Gay and I Hate the Hatred’

Tens of thousands of anti-gay marchers took to the streets this past weekend to protest Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposed constitutional reform favoring the right of couples to marry regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. Many of the parades and rallies were organized by Roman Catholic Church Bishops across Mexico including Tijuana’s Catholic archbishop, Francisco Moreno-Barrón.

The archbishop was named in a complaint submitted last week by Andrés Cruz, president of Comunidad Cultural de Tijuana LGBTI, a LGBTQI civil rights and support group that supports same-sex marriage, to Mexico’s Interior Ministry. It accused Moreno-Barrón of violating Mexico’s constitution when he publicly encouraged participation in the protests last week. “We have the right to defend our values,” Moreno-Barrón had stated in a sermon prior to this past weekend as he spoke of his intention to join the march in Tijuana. 

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times Saturday, Cruz said the protesters “are creating hate, and this leads to physical aggression against people in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities.”

During a demonstration Saturday by the National Front for the Family, in the city of Celaya, Guanajuato, captured in a photograph by journalist Manuel Rodríguez from the publication Regeneracion, a 12 year old boy attempts to halt the progress of the sea of protesters alone, by standing in the middle of the thoroughfare with his arms spread. As Rodriguez noted that the shot was eerily very similar shot in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. “It’s reminiscent of the ‘tank man‘ image the world knows so well,” he said, adding, “At first I thought the child was only playing.” But Rodriguez interviewed the child later, who told him, “I have an uncle who is gay and I hate the hatred.”

The demonstrations come on the heels of a series of legal victories scored by proponents of same-sex marriage in states across Mexico. Same-sex marriage has been legalized in Mexico City and 9 of the nation’s 31 states. There are legal challenges now underway in the other 22 states in Mexico.

 

Image © 2016 Manuel Rodríguez