Latin American LGBT advocates protest the Vatican's handling of child abuse cases

A couple of weeks ago the Europe-based International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, better known for their old name and acronym International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), joined Italian LGBT advocates to call for worldwide protests against the Catholic Church and the Vatican. Their reason?

From their alert:

On April 13 the number two in the Vatican hierarchy, the Pope’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, claimed that there is a link between homosexuality and paedophilia.

The LGBT movement worldwide has risen up against this false, despicable and anti-scientific statement from the Vatican, which is trying to deflect attention from priests’ sex crimes by blaming LGBT people.

While they are trying to hide the truth about the abuses perpetrated against innocent children, by making absurd parallels between homosexuality and paedophilia, ILGA and the Italian LGBT movement has launched an appeal to all citizens and associations all over the world to join an international protest against child abuse and support for victims in front of the Vatican embassies or the main Catholic churches.

Turning the paedophilia issue into a matter of sexual orientation, as the Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone did, can only lead to failing to address the serious allegations coming from around the world. The point is not whether to identify the sexual orientation of paedophiles, but firmly prosecute those responsible for such abuses, especially if they have an educational or spiritual role.

The Catholic Church must answer to the courts and the world public opinion for the serious cover-up occurred worldwide. This is our call, to all women and men of goodwill, of any religion, who cannot be silent in front of these abuses against innocent children. Take Action Now! Contact your local lgbt association to organise a protest in front of the Vatican embassy or the main catholic church of your city.

LGBT advocates throughout the world have answered the call.  AFP reports that more than 100 people gathered in Paris on Saturday while a number of agencies reported a demonstration in Rome, Italy, on the same day.  On April 4th, Easter Day, a number of people here in New York, mostly members of the LGBT activist group Queer Rising, also protested outside New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Meanwhile, in Latin America, there were very visible reactions from advocates in Venezuela, Argentina and Peru.

Venezuela: On Friday, the Venezuelan LGBTI Network asked supporters to congregate at La Previsora tower at Plaza Venezuela in Caracas and participate in a procession to the Vatican's embassy. 

Holding signs that read, among other things, "Pedophilia is a crime, homosexuality is not", marchers arrived at the embassy and handed a statement "repudiating the discriminatory attitude of the church against the human and civil rights of gays and lesbians".

An article in Aporrea also indicates that activists in neighboring country Colombia also staged a protest on April 17th at Bogota's main cathedral but there are no other details.

Participants of the Venezuela action included renown transgender activist Tamara Adrián (holding the sing in the photo), José Merentes (standing behind her), Carlos Aray and representatives from several Venezuelan LGBT organizations. 

Argentina: The Argentinian Homosexual Community (CHA), one of the leading LGBT organizations in the country (link here), also called for a protest outside the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires. MDZ says it was a small group of people (so was the one at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York).  Participants carried similar signs as those carried by activists in Venezuela: "Abuse is a crime, homosexuality is not".

Another one read "We express our rejection of the abuse against boys and girls, let's denounce the Vatican's silence."

Crítica also has a report which includes an image of the protest.

Peru: "Neither prayer nor oration will stop a rapist" says the sign held by an LGBT Peruvian advocate in the photo to the right.

LGBT advocates in Lima, Peru, organized perhaps the most successful of the recent protests, at least in the American continent.  El Comercio reports that over a hundred supporters of the LGBT Peruvian Network gathered outside the residence of the Vatican's diplomatic representative in Lima (link here and photo at the top of the page).

The protest, which had been announced days earlier, also drew an estimated thirty counter-protester, says the paper.  They arrived an hour early and waited for the LGBT advocates by counting the beads on their rosaries and praying.

Once the LGBT advocates arrived, the paper reports that there were non-violent clashes for more than two hours.  It culminated when a Catholic priest named Carlos María Stiegler stepped out of the residence to shout at the activists that they were "the work of the devil".

"This manifestation is not God's work," he said, "the Devil is present here."

"To cover a crime is also a crime," responded the LGBT advocates.

Speaking for the LGBT advocates, Marbel Reyes told the EFE news syndicate that the Network had kept their protest peaceful even when Stiegler attempted to proffer his blessings upon those gathered (supposedly to drive away the devil inside them).

And, while few in the United States paid attention, the US right-wing religious right certainly did.

The US-funded and Peruvian-based ACI Prensa highlighted the good work of those who gathered to defend the Vatican's sorry record on child abuse and saluted those who would stand up to a "small group of hostile feminists and homosexuals".

They also provided the pro-Vatican video below...

A gatherng of Latin American LGBT advocates in Los Angeles

A bunch of Colombians and a Brazilian (L to R: Germán Humberto Rincón Perfetti, Lucas Paoli Itabothany, Andrés Duque, Mauricio Albarracín, José Fernando Serrano Amaya and - in front - Alejandra Azurero and Marcela Sánchez)

It's been a month since I attended the "Global Arc of Justice: Sexual Orientation Law Around the World" conference at UCLA's School of Law, and I am still thrilled at having been there. The conference, organized on an annual basis by The Williams Institute and the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association brings together the leading international legal advocates working on LGBT rights.

And, certainly, there was a virtual who's who among the top legal LGBT advocates in the United States, which included Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson; former International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission ED Paula Ettelbrick; Scott Long, Director of the LGBT Division at Human Rights Watch; Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights; Julie Dorf, Director of the Council for Global Equality; and Nan Hunter, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, among others.

But what was truly unique about the conference was that, for the first time ever, the focus was on Latin America. This meant that there was just as stellar a gathering of LGBT rights advocates from the region as those from the US, including a few friends who I had not seen in years, and people I had heard about but never met before.

Among the people I got to meet was Judge Karen Atala from Chile (left). In 2004, in a case that made international news, Judge Atala lost custody of three daughters from a previous marriage when Chile's Supreme Court ruled that her current relationship with a woman was not in the children's interest. The case is currently on appeal before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and several US LGBT and human rights organizations have filed an amicus brief in her support.

Then there was Tamara Adrian Hérnandez (pictured right, next to José Ramón Merentes Corréa of Venezuela's Unión Afirmativa who I also greatly admire). Ms. Adrian is a firebrand attorney and law professor from Venezuela whose work has shaped the inclusion of LGBT rights language in the Ecuadorian and Bolivian constitutions, even as her own government has resisted them.

Also present: Olga Orraca-Paredes, one of the leading LGBT rights activists from Puerto Rico, founder of the Lesbian Creative Workshop and one of the organizers of the annual LGBT pride parades in San Juan, who I hadn't seen in almost a decade. It was surreal to be able to share a couple of breakfasts with Olga and to share thoughts on Latino LGBT organizing after all these years.

Here, Olga is standing next to another of my heroes, Susel Paredes Piqué (right), an attorney who founded Perú's LGBT Legal Association.

Recently, I wrote about a transgender sex worker in Tarapoto, Perú, being beaten up and humiliated on national television. Well, Susel and her organization are among those providing support to the victim, and I was glad to have an opportunity to talk to her about the case and to find out that the woman was receiving good legal advice and supportive services.

Which brings us to transgender Argentinian expatriate Mónica León (who currently lives in France), and Peruvian transgender activist Belissa Andía Perez (pictured below).

Both are subjects of documentaries exposing the harshness of living life as transgender advocates in their respective countries. And it was particularly moving to watch each film after having hung out with them for a couple of days and getting to know them.

In "En El Fuego" Ms. Perez (right), Transgender Secretariat to the ILGA Executive Board and founder of the trans-right organization Claveles Rojos in Peru, speaks about the long path to being accepted by her family and her own struggle to figure out what it means to be a transgender person in Peru (Claveles Rojos is the lead agency providing support to the Tarapoto victim).

In the amazing "Hotel Gondolín", Ms. León (above, left) is shown taking control over an abandoned apartment building inhabited by transgender sex workers. She institutes a series of unorthodox 'house rules' meant to decrease drug-addiction and improve their living environment (i.e. demanding huge 'rent' penalties for those caught taking drugs), and also organizes them to lobby the Buenos Aires City Council for a law that will decrease police persecution of sex-workers by deregulating certain areas of the city. Wherever you stand on the issue of decriminalizing prostitution, it is amazing to see this woman's efforts to improve the life of such a marginalized community.

I also met the other Andrés at the conference, Andrés Ignacio Rivera Duarte from Chile, and we got along famously (that's the two Andreses on the left).

I believe he is still spreading rumors in Chile about my non-religious upbringing and the Chinese Revolution coloring books that I used to paint as a kid.

Last year, along with South African Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Iranian Queer Organization, Andrés was one of the recipients last year of the prestigious Felipa de Souza award given by IGLHRC for global LGBT advocacy.

He was recognized as the founder of Organización de Transexuales por la Dignidad - the first non-governmental transgender rights organization in his country - and for his groundbreaking work on trans rights issues in one of the most socially conservative countries in South America.

But wait! There is more!

Colombia Diversa was in the house! Which meant that I had the opportunity to see my good friends Marcela Sánchez, Germán Humberto Rincón Perfetti, Mauricio Albarracín and attorney Alejandra Azurero (see top pic). They, of course, were part of the team who build the strategy that resulted in the series of rulings by the Colombian Constitutional Court granting most of the rights enjoyed by heterosexual married partners to same-sex couples.

The four, along with José Fernando Serrano, did a presentation on the advances in Colombia which was attended perhaps by fifteen, maybe twenty people, tops. And yet, as I looked at these young advocates I couldn't help but to feel awe.

In every single respect they - and the folk I have described above - are the Evan Wolfsons, Shannon Minters and Paula Ettelbricks of Latin America. On some areas, they have been able to bring more advances in LGBT rights in their home countries than some of the best advocates in the United States (not so much in other areas). So forgive Germán for standing up at a closing-day Prop. 8 panel - rather dramatically - to take his turn in criticising the failed California "No on Prop. 8" strategy from a Colombian point of view (with the helpful assistance of a woofy translator).

As for woofyness, Argentinian Supreme Court Justice Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni? OMG! (Down boys, he was at the conference as an ally).

And I have certainly only mentioned just a sampling of the conference and not given nearly a complete overview of how great it was! I must thank, though, David B. Cruz from USC and Brad Sears from The Williams Institute (as well as Saúl Sarabia from UCLA Law School) for putting together this amazing and historic gathering.

The Williams Institute actually has pdf files which summarize the daily happenings during the conference here, here and here. They also have posted photos here.

My personal photo album can be found here.