Posted on 05/14/2005 11:54:03 PM PDT by DBeers
MEXICO CITY - "You look so in love, my darling," a mother tells her son in a radio commercial that has sparked a controversy here. "I can't wait for your partner to come to dinner. What is your partner's name again?"
"Oscar, Mama," a male voice replies, revealing to the listener that his lover is another man.
The commercial, which has been dubbed The dinner, is part of Mexico's first-ever national campaign against homophobia, which was recently launched by the Health Ministry's anti-AIDS agency.
Mexican law already bans discrimination against minorities, and gays have become more open and accepted in larger cities. But lobby groups say the campaign is sorely needed to counter anti-gay attitudes that are still widespread in macho Mexico.
Campaigners also argue that Mexicans need to overcome their homophobia so they can effectively battle the AIDS epidemic.
Some health workers refuse to attend to homosexual AIDS patients, says Arturo Diaz, a leading organizer of the anti-homophobia campaign.
Furthermore, Mexican anti-AIDS campaigns have been misdirected, focusing overwhelmingly on adolescent heterosexual couples, Diaz says. According to government figures, more than 60 percent of the 90,000 Mexicans reported to be HIV-positive are gay or bisexual men.
Homophobic attitudes cause many gay men to marry, activists say, potentially exposing unknowing wives to the AIDS infection.
The campaign has been supported by Congress but has met staunch resistance from socially conservative groups and Roman Catholic clerics.
A statement by Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar, president of the Family Committee in the Mexican Bishops Conference, says that it is wrong for the government to promote homosexual acts as legitimate.
"In reality, homosexuals are hetero-phobic. They have fear of the other sex, of sexual difference, which is the source and root of legitimate and healthy reproduction," the statement says.
Aguilar supports his argument with Old Testament passages about Sodom and Gomorra, which, he says, were destroyed by God because of homosexual activity there. Other more liberal biblical interpretations maintain that God doomed the cities because they were multilayered hives of sin.
Other vocal opponents of the campaign include the anti-abortion group Pro-Life and the National Union of Parents, a Catholic group that says it defends the interests of the Mexican family.
The Union of Parents asked the government to ban the commercial.
The radio spot "aims for family and social acceptance of something that is unnatural and abhorrent," the group said.
Diaz, the campaign organizer, says that he welcomes the public debate being played out in the Mexican media.
"This is the first time people in Mexico have talked openly about homosexuality," he says. "Traditionally people have tried to pretend it doesn't exist here."
The 2000 election of President Vicente Fox ended seven decades of continuous one-party rule. In today's more democratic environment, gay lobbies have become a growing political force, with parties concerned about courting homosexual voters, says Rene Jimenez, a sociologist at Mexico's National Autonomous University.
However, some gay activists say the campaign is being launched in spite of the Fox administration, which includes many socially conservative Catholics.
"Fox's National Action Party are a bunch of right-wingers," says Blanca Sanchez, who heads a group of parents of homosexuals. "Let's see if they stand up to the conservative pressure against this campaign."
With nearly 90 percent of Mexicans describing themselves as Roman Catholic, Sanchez says the church has a resounding influence and is a root cause of homophobia.
However, campaign organizer Diaz says that hatred of homosexuals has much more to do with Mexico's macho culture.
"Mexicans have entrenched ideas about being a man that bring out a violent reaction toward gays," Diaz says. "The funny thing is, some of the most macho Mexicans are bisexual."
When he came out of the closet about his homosexuality six years ago, she says her husband left and she was fired from her post as a teacher in a private school. Her 24-year-old is unable to get a job, despite a university degree and excellent qualifications, she says.
The experience has made Sanchez denounce her Catholic religion and become an anti-homophobic activist.
"I just want my child to be able to live with dignity," Sanchez says. "I stand by her all the way."
ping.
Keep hate alive.
Probably grossly exagerated, but still a drop in the bucket compared to the gay on gay violence....the 50,000 cases of AIDS caused by homosexual activity.
I was at the gas station today, nice sunny day, two slender looking gals driving a mustang in short skirts were pumping their gas, and i was thinking to myself, woman are sooooo hot, how can anyone even think of not being with a woman, somthing has to be seriously wrong with them if they don't want a woman. I would give a left nut to be with a hot chick anyday.
Jesus said: "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." -from THE BIBLE: Matthew 19:4-6
There's only 90,000 HIV positive in the entire country.
That's probably new cases. But it does seem low.
How about keep common sense alive?
Never stick your penis where it never belonged in the first place. Do you defend the stupid, selfish sexual gratification that is against the very nature of biology itself. And for what? Just to say "hey, I'm waaaay smarter than to believe what's written in the bible". You just want to label the lesson as hate? FYI, God doesn't hate, that comes entirely from the other place.
People have the free will these days to bugger and wank each other to their hearts delight, but people in their zealousness to appear so tolerant of the gay lifestyle have exposed themselves as intolerant of those who chose to believe the bible is the word of God. The word of life.
Needed? Says who?
To counter anti-gay attitudes? Says who?
You mean to tell me that so-called free peoples need to be re-educated, re-molded, brainwashed to agree with a group of godless elitists? The government is big-brothering with a steady drumbeat of re-programming of morality? That is sick. Oh yea, they do that here in the U.S.A. also.
These immorality pushing elitists are the biggest hypocrites who have every lived.
The one thing Mexico had right (e.g., homosexuality is not and should not be mainstream) is getting messed up.
In related news, President Vicente Fox announced that gays in his country often do work that even American blacks or Mexican immigrants to America won't do.
There is not much dignity in having you genitals removed by mutilation. Maybe he-she can get a job in a Mexican border town brothel. I dont know how man- made vaginas would stand up to the stress of every day use though.
L.O.L.....Mexican he-shes on the border.
...As in love the sinner, hate the sin.
(Admittedly, the whole homosexual 'thing' is completely sickening to me and my wife.)
I would love to be able to channel surf at 10 PM on a weekend without having my 5 year-old granddaughter say "Papa! What was that?!"
Has our world been enhanced by the loss of innocence our young used to have?
In a word, no. Their childhood has been stolen from them by the lewd and selfish as they are forced to confront issues they simply should not have to confront.
Put it back in the bedroom, or closet, or whatever and let the kids be kids.
HELLO!!!! If it wasn't for the queers, there wouldn't BE an AIDS epidemic!
The hate of what the "homosexual" practices, is what most Christians hate not the pervert.
We need to reazize its something they do not something they are.
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