Powerful Photo Shows A Young Boy Standing Up Against Thousands Of Anti-Gay Protesters

via Twitter

Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands of anti-same-sex marriage protestors took to the streets in 12 cities across Mexico. The gatherings were in opposition to President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposed constitutional amendment that would allow couples to marry regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. His decision comes after pro-marriage equality court victories in nine of Mexico’s 31 states. While the march of progress happens in the courts and opposition reigns in the streets, a photo of a lone boy standing for equality has become a symbol for the movement.

At a protest in Celaya, Guanajuato, 11,000 people marched through the streets when an unnamed 12-year-old boy ran out into the middle of the road and held out his arms to stop the advancing crowd. At first, Manuel Rodríguez, the journalist who took the photo, thought the boy was just playing in the street. But when he approached him for a comment he found the boy has a personal reason to support marriage equality. “I have an uncle that is gay, and I hate people that hate,” he told Rodríguez.

Rodríguez’s powerful image invokes the famous photo of the “Tank Man” who stood in front of a row of tanks after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

via Twitter