Peru: Gay students pulled out of school after being caught in compromising situation

Another update: In April I wrote about a decision by a local court in Colombia ordering a large all-girls' school to welcome back two students who were kicked out because they were a lesbian couple (the school's principal argued that they were kicked out due to behavior problems but the court ruled that they had been rejected for showing affection towards each other).

The ruling drew national attention when reporters captured images of the angry mobs that greeted the two students when they went to register for the new semester. Their first day of class did not bring as much hostility but few schoolmates expressed any support. In a brave interview given to a national television news show one of the girls said that few of their former friends would even approach them now but, with support of their parents, both had decided to stick it through and finish their high-school degree at the institution.

In July I wrote about a similar case in Peru at an all-boys' school where an internal investigation had been launched into reports that two high-school seniors had been caught in a compromising situation. The sketchy details about the case came from a Destapa newspaper article which referred to an unspecified "homosexual act" between the students which took place inside what was supposed to be an empty classroom. I was personally struck by the fact one of the students seemed to question the reasoning behind the investigation. He was qoted as asking "What's with the uproar if in the class there are 5 more students who are homosexual and everyone knows them?"

On August 14th, in a small follow-up article, Destapa revisited the case and said that the parents of both students had decided to pull the boys out of the San José de Chiclayo National School "out of their own volition" although it's not clear whether this information comes from the school itself or the boy's parents.

The article, which reveals that the "homosexual act" in question was oral sex, says that it was a substitute art teacher who first reported the students to the school rectory based on what he said were complaints by other students (the original article said that the students had taken advantage of a class cancellation to get together at what they thought would be an empty classroom but that more than twenty students had caught them in the act).

Organizations such as the Homosexual Movement of Lima (MOhL) had offered legal support and opposed any move to throw the students out of the institution.