Many people in Mexico still consider President Enrique Peña Nieto’s bill sent to Congress May 17 legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide to be “unexplainable.”
The bill has unleashed a war between the nation’s majority Christian religionists (Catholics and protestants) and the president’s bill, calling same-sex marriage the “most unnatural” reunion that violates all moral codes and most definitely, Christian traditions.
Priests belonging to major religious organizations took to the streets to protest the bill and force the president to cancel his proposition.
In response, a group of people last Thursday, representing the LGBTTTI national community (please notice that the initials differ from those in English) delivered a document to the Interior Secretariat’s (Segob) Undersecretary of Population, Migration and Religious Matter Humberto Roque Villanueva to defend their rights against the Catholic onslaught and stop their “hate speech.”
They demand a “dialogue table” or commission from the interior authorities to sanction the priests, imposing fines on the religious hierarchies for their street demonstrations, calling gay marriages “an abomination of nature” and breaking laws.
At the Interior Secretariat they were told that, at least for now, Segob is not the place to mediate, and they must take their demand either to the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate, because to begin with the president’s bill demanding equal rights is not a law and the priests and their flock can not be fined or sanctioned, because they have the constitutional right to protest the president’s bill.
“One can’t violate a law that doesn’t exist yet, that hasn’t been voted on.” This is exactly the case for the presidential bill that may or may not be considered for discussion in Congress, as the issue has been proven to be too hot to handle, and both Segob and the president have more pressing issues such as the economically destructive transport blockading protests, such as those staged by the National Coordinator of Education Workers union, or for that matter, Monday’s unwarranted and unexplainable scorching tax hike on fuels prices.
As for many political pundits who consider President Enrique Peña Nieto’s gay rights bill “unexplainable,” perhaps they are not paying attention to the president’s actions. His most noteworthy was joining with Canada Prime Minister Trudeau and Barack Obama in the opening statement of the most recent “Three Amigos” press conference, in which their first statement was issuing support for the LGBTTTI movement in all three nations.
U.S. Ambassador Roberta Jacobson also made a very public statement, showing the U.S. Government’s support for the movement when she physically participated in gay rights parade in Mexico City just upon taking office at the Embassy. Personally, I was confounded by the ambassador’s presence in the parade, but it seems to me to be exactly what it was, a political statement.
So the president’s bill is clearly “explainable,” but that, however, does not mean that the religious communities of Mexico (including Muslims, Jews and many representatives from Asian religions) will not lobby against it in Congress.
Surely taking to the streets to protest is a valid recourse, but surely it will come from both sides, as the LGBTTTI representatives have accused Cardinal Norberto Rivera for being “a promoter of violence against the LGBTTTI community,” as the Catholic church fiercely opposes their right not only for legal wedlock, but also for adoption rights.
The LGBTTTI presence at Segob is seeking to force the interior officials to unplug this social short circuit promoted by the Catholic onslaught against them. But, in truth I tell you that this social rift is just getting started.
And, President Peña Nieto is definitely right smack in the middle of it.
