Tens of thousands of people on Saturday
marched through Mexico City to protest against a proposal to legalize
marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples throughout Mexico.
While Mexico's highest court has ruled
that gay couples have a constitutional right to marry, most states
continue to deny marriage licenses to gay couples. Mexican President
Enrique Pena Nieto in May asked lawmakers to debate the issue.
Saturday's march was organized by the
Roman Catholic group National Front for the Family, which estimated
at least 215,000 people participated in the march. Other estimates
were as low as 80,000.
Demonstrators dressed mostly in white
and carried white balloons.
Abraham Ledesma, an evangelical pastor
from McAllen, Texas, participated in the march.
“We are not against anybody's
[sexual] identity,” he
told the AP. “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.”
A counter protest at Mexico's
Independence Monument drew a couple hundred marriage equality
supporters.