Gay rights activists and Catholics
clashed in Guadalajara, Mexico over a recently upheld law that allows
gay and lesbian couples to marry and adopt children, the Spanish news
agency EFE reported.
Mexico's Roman Catholic Church has
condemned recent Supreme Court rulings upholding the
constitutionality of a gay marriage law approved by Mexico City
lawmakers in December and its provision that allows married gay
couples to adopt. But the harshest rhetoric has come from the
church's prelates in Guadalajara, the nation's second largest city.
Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, the
Archbishop of Guadalajara, has accused Mexico City Mayor Marcelo
Ebrard and his government of bribing the high court to rule in favor
of its gay marriage law. Ebrard
responded with a lawsuit.
Sandoval Iniguez also accused the court
of betraying Mexico, the family and natural law. The court's ruling
that allows married gay couples to adopt is certain to harm “many
innocent Mexicans,” he wrote in a recent op-ed for El Semanario.
“I do not know of any of you who
would like to be adopted by a pair of lesbians of a pair of fags,”
he said during a press conference in Aguascalientes. “I think
not.”
On Saturday, and again on Sunday,
demonstrators from both sides hurled insults at each other at a plaza
next to the city's cathedral.
Catholics screamed, “War-war against
Lucifer!” and “Adopt a dog fags!”
“We're getting married and we're
adopting, we're getting married and we're adopting!” gay activists
responded.
The demonstrators numbered in the
hundreds, with both sides about evenly matched, according to several
reports.