LGBT+ community demands an apology after the declarations of the Archbishop of Yucatan

Mérida, Yucatán, (August 30, 2021).- “God help us in this new circumstance, we are talking about the approval of equal marriage,” said Archbishop Gustavo Rodríguez Vega, in his homily this Sunday, August 29.

“Congress approved the redefinition of marriage, restricting protection to the Marriage Institution and the Family, leaving aside the sexual reality of the human being,” added the Archbishop.

These and other expressions made by the hierarch of Catholicism in Yucatán, motivated the Collective for the Protection of All Families in Yucatán (ColectivoPTFYuc) to appeal to Conapred, where they filed a complaint to demand that Archbishop Rodríguez Vega publicly apologizes to the LGBTQ + community.

In a statement, the ColectivoPTFYuc expressed that they disapprove of the discriminatory expressions against the approval of equal marriage made by Archbishop Gustavo Rodríguez Vega in his Sunday homily.

Despite the fact that human rights should not be subject to the will of the majority – otherwise, racial minorities would not have, at least on paper, an egalitarian legal certainty – according to the 2017 National Survey on Discrimination (CONAPRED, CNDH, INEGI), over 63% of the people surveyed in Yucatán were in favor of equal marriage.

That the Archbishop says: “This forces all parents to pay even more attention to the accompaniment and loving closeness with their children, at this time in which so much confusion is generated, especially in their adolescence”, it seems to be a direct indication to Catholic families to reject the nature of their daughters and sons. The confusion comes when those who should love you unconditionally reject you for who you are.

According to the United Nations, LGBTQ + youths are much more likely than other people to be homeless, caused by the rejection and abuse of their own families and communities, and according to several studies, LGBTQ + young people who experience rejection of their families for their sexual preferences, are seven times more at risk of attempting to die by suicide than their heterosexual counterparts @ColectivoPTFyuc. Discrimination is an issue that impacts mental health and human rights in our community.

“We express our total rejection against the hate speech towards LGBTQ + people that the Archbishop of Yucatán used on Sunday, August 29, which has a direct impact on the social discrimination that our community experiences every day, on the access and exercise of our human and civil rights and even in the violence we suffer within our families. Freedom of expression and/or religious beliefs do not protect discriminatory speeches“, ColectivoPTFYuc stated.

Source: Yucatan Ahora