Canadian gay couple kissing on Mexico´s Tulum beach arrested by homophobic cops

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Heavily armed policemen detained a Canadian gay couple for kissing. They were put in a patrol car and the video was broadcast on TikTok; due to the pressure of the public they were released.

“No! No! No!” some in the crowd chanted as the two speedo-clad men were loaded into the back of a pickup truck.

“I’m gay, too!” others in the crowd began chanting after learning of the reason for the arrest of the two men.

The crowd continued to grow, surrounding the masked police who were eventually forced to release the men.

“I want to express my anger because the police here in Quintana Roo are homophobic,” said the Municipal Detective Maritza Escalante.

She said that she was on the beach with her family and noticed that some officers on ATVs approached the foreigners on the beach and after 20 minutes a patrol car arrived and wanted to take them away in handcuffs because of their sexual orientation and public displays of affection.

The people gathered there were angry and frustrated by the police’s abuse and homophobia, said abuse going so far as to handcuff them together and move them into the back of their ATV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asw5fkdmx2k

“We started to give them support, we didn’t let them take them away, we even started to shout that all of us that ‘we were gay,’ but the police used public force and committed abuse of power.” Mexico has made progress on protecting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in some states, but lags in others. Marriage equality was legalized in 2010 in all but one state, and discrimination based on sexual orientation was also outlawed.

Large cities with progressive leadership are generally more inclusive and affirming for the LGBTQ+ community, such as Mexico City which banned conversion therapy last year, but hate crimes often go unpunished in smaller, more conservative areas.

Last October, the famed gay beach resort Mantamar Beach Club was fined after video was released showing two men having sex in a see-through pool visible to passersby on a public beach.

While Escalante and the crowd were able to force the release of the two men, she is still “furious” about the event. “We all deserve the same treatment, and the corresponding sanctions must be applied to these elements,” she said.