More than 45,000 people marched in Guadalajara last Saturday in protest at President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposals to legalize gay marriage in Mexico.
Organizers described the rally as a great success, noting that the crowd completely encircled the Minerva glorieta and extended ten blocks down Avenida Vallarta.
The well publicized protest – similar marches were held in more than 120 cities and towns throughout the country attracting one million people – had been billed as “The March for the Family” (Marcha por la Familia) and included many children. This slogan seemed to reflect the view of most participants that the legalization of same-sex marriage is an assault on the heterosexual nuclear family.
Some participants, however, pointed out that the march was less to do with objections to gay marriage but the federal government’s plans to take the sexual education of children out of the hands of parents.
“This was not about gays and lesbians,” wrote Monica Buenrostro on the Reporter’s Facebook page. “The (march) was convened to defend parents’ right to teach sexual education to their own kids. Families were asking the government not to change text books that corrupt their children’s innocence. It was not a protest of hate and intolerance like some said. It was a quiet family protest fighting for parents’ rights.”
Dozens of placards held aloft during the march did contain specific references to the issue of sex education in schools, parents’ rights and proposals to include gender themes in official curriculums and text books.
In addition to sending his same-sex marriage initiative to Congress in May, President Enrique Peña Nieto instructed Education Secretary Aurelio Nuño to include the theme of sexual diversity in “educational content.” Other government agencies were told to start national campaigns against homophobia.
For some time the federal government has been pressured by various groups, including the Asociación Mexicana para la Salud Sexual, the Federación Mexicana de Educación Sexual y Sexología and the Red Nacional Democracia y Sexualidad, to introduce official text books – even at primary school level – that provide instruction about teenage pregnancies, gender roles, sexual and gender violence, homophobia and other issues.
The influential Mexican Catholic Church and conservative groups have condemned suggestions that the academic curriculum should be modified to include positive messages or instruction about LGBT issues as a way to reduce discrimination, prejudice and bullying aimed at LGBT youth.
In July, the Unión Nacional de Padres de Familia urged federal authorities not to feature themes of same-sex relationships in text books as this might “confuse” children.
Although the Secretaria de Education Publica (SEP) had already printed text books for the 2016/17 academic cycle, Nuño did not rule out the possibility that changes could be implemented for the following school year, even though legislators are under no obligation to discuss the issue in conjunction with the president’s gay marriage proposal.
A big concern for many Mexicans is that digressions from traditional gender ideology – long-held attitudes regarding the appropriate roles, rights and responsibilities of men and women in society – that obscure the difference or duality of the sexes will find their way into Mexico’s mainstream school curriculums and text books.
Nowadays, the governments of many western countries take a progressive approach to gender education in schools.
Earlier this year, the Canadian province of Ontario released a sex education curriculum introducing gender identity and sexual orientation to third graders – mostly as a form of “accepting our differences.”
In the United Kingdom, guidance to teachers advocates that sex and relationships education should be inclusive but stops short of making it compulsory, leaving the decision to individual schools.
And California recently became the first U.S. state to adopt the LGBT rights agenda formally into its public schools, as part of a new history and social studies curriculum that will reach children as young as the second grade.
But the issue of changing gender roles causes plenty of controversy, and not only in Mexico. Even in nations which have liberal attitudes toward gender equality and diversity, there are concerns at the harm that may be done by telling children they are “gender fluid.” The American College of Pediatricians recently urged U.S. educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. “Facts – not ideology – determine reality,” the organization stated.
The debate in Mexico, unfortunately, is clouded by the reactionary views of the Catholic Church about the legitimacy of a secular state. During his sermon at the Guadalajara Cathedral Sunday, Cardinal Francisco Robles, the archbishop of Guadalajara, said parents should have the right to educate their children according to their religious beliefs, and described the government’s “interpretation” of gender ideology as “totalitarian.”
“If a parent is Catholic and says ‘I want my children to have a Catholic education,’ then the state should recognize this right,” Robles said.