Ecuador: gay intolerance continues

The community GLBTI (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex) Ecuadorian held this June 28, Gay Pride Day, with a different expectation. Wait for the recognition of the Assembly, their civil rights, especially on a type of union that will allow couples to have a common heritage.
However, outside the legal framework that can be discussed between meetings, homosexuals in the country still feel intolerance on the part of citizens, including their request to enjoy this right. According to a public opinion survey conducted last month to The Telegraph in 820 households in the country's Coast and Sierra, 67% of the population is at odds with approving the union of gay couples and 77% opposed their marriage.

To Efraín Soria, Program Coordinator of the Equity Foundation, this is because the barriers in education have not been broken yet. "If schools do not talk about sex education among heterosexuals, how it is to be understood as referring to homosexuality." This lack of information, for it means that young people do not understand this issue and hold preconceived ideas by their parents about sexual orientation.

A similar view Oscar Ugarte, a defender of gay rights. He says that if there is a change in attitude there must be reforms in the education laws. "We must start with education. This should be talking and no longer be a taboo. In Latin America practiced much sex, but sex is not spoken, "he said.
However, the evangelical pastor William Salazar, the result is not entirely surprising, because their religion to homosexuality is not a viable identification. "They call it guidance, but it is not an orientation but a diversion," he believes.

With this type of design, GLBTI members argue that can not be expected to accept the company and its union, if they do not even tolerate their demonstrations. For example, Andres Mejia, 19, is gay and lives in Guayaquil. He accepts that in the main port people are more inclusive of homosexuals. "One day at a mall with my boyfriend. We were eating and we found a kiss. At that time we launched the guard, I told him and he claimed it was for indecent exposure, "he recalls.

Neptalí Arias, national president of Friends for Life Foundation (Famivida), argues that discrimination variables it shows in the country. While in the capital is an agenda to support the community in Guayaquil "just to get permission for the march has been difficult. In 2000 we took out with police. Now give permission to mouth. "

That perception of the perceived difference Andres. He, travels with her partner when seized by the hand, must bear that people begin to murmur, which is similar in other cities. "There is more tolerance in Quito because people accept us in a different way," he explains.

He is not wrong. The capital is the first in the country to ensure the right of their community, since December 2007, adopted Ordinance 240, "Inclusion of sexual diversity in the policies of the Metropolitan District."

Soria, the Equity Foundation, stressed that the ordinance is to declare the capital Quito as a city free of homophobia, to combat all forms of stigma and discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Margarita Carranco, councilor of Quito, said that the activists are part of the collective GLBTI Equity Council and the Municipality is working to develop public policies to be replicated elsewhere in the country.

In this regard, Jhonny Teran, president of Association of Municipalities of Ecuador (AME) and Mayor of Babahoyo, says there are no laws that promote discrimination. "Anyone can travel on the public areas provided they do not perform immoral acts," he explains. But adds that the pair made a kiss in public, whether by heterosexuals or homosexuals, was seen as an immoral act.

So there are more cities that can not tolerate even a GLBT social event and less a civil union. Soria stressed that in towns like Riobamba and Latacunga homosexuality is persecuted "because they are small towns, where the conservative and gay is still not including spaces."

In El Oro, as Karem Paz, transgender and a member of the Trans in this province, something similar is happening there and is reflected in the work area where the group is inserted. "Because of intolerance, trans people are waitresses, working in offices or engage in prostitution," he says.

In Tulcan, Carchi, a group of 15 people who are part of the collective GLBT Ibujes says John, one of its members. He notes that all there "appear to be heterosexual and even when we are better farrear we go to Colombia, where the topic is more accepted and there are bars of environment."