Noticias

Simon Cazal, as co-founder and executive director of SOMOSGAY, has been invited by the Paraguayan Episcopal Group, through the organising committee for the visit of Pope Francis, to participate in the meeting he will hold with paraguayan civil society representatives on July 11 at the Leon Condou Stadium at 4:30 pm. The meeting will be held during a visit to Paraguay, and the meeting was the Catholic Church’s idea.

Cazal received an invitation on June 4 from the committee of the Paraguayan bishops’ conference to participate in a roundtable with the pope and civil society leaders. The invitation — provided to BuzzFeed News by SOMOSGAY — said it was extended in recognition of the “high impact of your organization on Paraguayan society.” The meeting will be held on July 11 in the capital, Asunción.

Though the pope has reportedly held pastoral meetings with some LGBT people, this meeting marks the first time he will publicly meet with an LGBT political activist.

Sergio López, another activist of SOMOSGAY who married Cazal in Argentina, 2012, told BuzzFeed News that the invitation came as a total surprise — the group had not requested to be included in the meeting. Paraguay also is one of the few South American countries where no protections exist for LGBT people or same-sex couples; their marriage in Argentina has no legal force in their country.
The invitation comes shortly after SOMOSGAY launched a campaign calling on the Catholic Church to “abandon the positions of intolerance and insults dehumanizing LGBT people.”

SOMOSGAY made international news last June when riot police violently removed LGBT protestors supporting a resolution supportive of LGBT rights when they clashed with religious conservative protesters before the beginning of a meeting of the Organization of American States in Asunción last year.

López told BuzzFeed News on Thursday that they are counting on the pope to “address the issue” of violence targeting LGBT people “since the OAS repression went completely unnoticed and unrecognized by the church here.” This was especially galling, López said, because “the whole repression happened during a Catholic march.”

SOMOSGAY will continue to promote the democratic construction of a culture of dialogue, in order to achieve a diverse, plural, peaceful and inclusive Paraguayan society, with full equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people and their families; in their homes, their schools and their workplaces.