Groups opposed to same-sex marriage in Jalisco have started to make themselves seen and heard in recent days.
Last Sunday, around 20 members of the group “Jalisco es uno por los niños” were out campaigning on the streets of Guadalajara.
Fixing stickers with their logo onto car windscreens, the Catholic activists urged drivers and their passengers to reject the current worldwide trend toward acceptance of marriage equality.
“We want to defend the importance of natural marriage because it benefits society,” said the group’s spokeswoman, Maria Salcedo. “We are not against homosexuals, but life cannot come from a union between a man and a man.”
Salcedo said recent decisions taken by Mexico’s Supreme Court “trample” on the rights of the majority of the population, which she stressed does “not approve” of marriage equality.
“Jalisco es uno por los niños” is holding a march on Saturday, July 25 in “defense of children’s right to grow in an ”integral” manner.
Salcedo said it is also worrying that schools in many European countries are now following sexual education programs that promote gender ideology, which stresses that the differences between men and women are simply social conventions, and limit individual freedom.
Cardinal Juan Sandoval, the outspoken former archbishop of Guadalajara, has warned that the Catholic church in Jalisco will be “in great danger” if same-sex marriage is permitted and that the issue “a matter of life or death” for Mexico. He insisted that the church had every right to interfere in political matters, especially when they touched on “moral issues,” and urged bishops and priests to sign petitions against same-sex unions.
A “No al ‘matrimonio’ homosexual” platform on citizengo.org set up by Jalisco es uno por los niños” has around 18,000 signatures.