MEXICO CITY (AP) – Tens of thousands of people marched through Mexico City on Saturday in opposition to President Enrique Pena Nieto’s push to legalize same-sex marriage.
Organizers of the National Front for the Family estimated at least 215,000 people participated, and while that number could not be immediately confirmed, it was clearly one of the largest protest marches in Mexico in recent years.
Dressed mainly in white and carrying white balloons, the marchers held banners warning against same-sex marriage and demanding parents’ right to control sex education in schools.
“We are not against anybody’s (sexual) identity,” said Abraham Ledesma, an evangelical pastor who traveled from the border city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, to participate in Saturday’s march. “What we are against is the government imposition … of trying to impose gender ideology in education. As religious leaders, we don’t want to be forced to marry same-sex couples and call it marriage.”
Others carried signs saying “an adopted child deserves a mother and a father.”