A gay couple in the country of Colombia was driven out of
a public park by a pretty hateful mob.
Just because they had the audacity to show their love and
affection with each other with a kiss.
Now the community later decided to come together to show their support for
the couple by holding a massive kiss a thon which I love.
But before we get to that, I do want to give you some details on what happened.
So this happened in Colombia's capital of bogota.
Overall, Colombia is actually pretty supportive of gay rights.
Colombia is one of the most liberal countries in Latin America when it comes
to LGBTQ rights.
Same sex marriage was legalized in 2016 and
same sex parents have equal rights to adoption.
Anti LGBTQ discrimination is even prohibited by law.
But sadly, as we know here in the United States, similar situation in
Colombia with hateful people who don't want gay couples to enjoy the same rights.
So this is where santiago maldonado and jorge esteban Farias
we're just enjoying their time together at this public park.
They were kissing and then that was when a mob decided to basically bother them and
drive them out of the park.
So let's take a quick look at this video and I'll explain what's going on.
So that woman with the stick with the crazy stick says terrible things to them.
If you don't leave will lynch you.
One woman screamed in this neighborhood, We don't allow sex in the park.
They were just kissing.
We don't look at that woman, No girl, you need therapy.
You need therapy.
That's what you need, okay.
Like by the way, threatening them with physical violence.
Over the shouting, a young man asks what sex and repeat.
They'd only been kissing.
So like they weren't doing anything wrong.
They were just being affectionate with one another at this park and
then the violent mob comes after them and you can see it in the video.
How horrifying is that, John, I mean sharing a tender moment with
a loved one and then being confronted by these insane people.
>> Yeah, I mean, look, we're used to, you know, this, this sort of homophobia,
the fact that people carry on cameras makes it easier to see how common it is.
It's common here.
Why not around the world the fact that you would feel like so free in a public place,
not just to yell at and harassed and try to drive away people that you hate or
fear, but that you would feel free to attack them.
Like you would think, well, no, it's so obvious that what they're doing is worse
than me with the physical violence that if anyone sees this, if the authorities come,
they will definitely side with me to help me in beating and
driving off these people.
It's insane.
I mean, look, we also have become much more,
much more familiar with the canonization of everyday encounters.
That sort of thing is that just happened in Colombia, that could have been anywhere
in America, basically, I would not have been surprised for
us to have that happen in Florida or wherever maybe in Orange County or
something like people feel like everyone else's life is theirs to determine.
There's this knee jerk opposition of the fact that there's this slow incremental
change in some of these social areas and and unfortunately they're, they're so
angry to see the world changing that they will lash out with violence,
even deadly violence.
>> I think it's super weird when the happiness of others, which has absolutely
no negative impact on your life somehow becomes like the bane of your existence.
That means that you've got issues that you've got to work out right.
The idea of seeing people demonstrate their love for one another,
whether it be through a kiss by a loving embrace or any other way that's,
you know, obviously not lewd or whatever, like they weren't doing anything wrong.
And the fact that just seeing two people happy seeing two
people demonstrate their love for one another.
Like evokes the kind of reaction we saw from that woman holding the, the stick is,
it's, and you're right, john, I mean, yes,
we have a lot of that here in the United States.
I want to be clear.
This is not a commentary on Columbia as a country, Every country is unfortunately
going to have a group of people who are consumed with their own hatred for others.
Even when the people they hate so much have no impact,
no bearing on their own lives, right?
But what I do love about this story because there is a good part of it,
that video went viral, right?
The video of the mob attacking the couple went viral and people decided,
no, we gotta, we gotta come together and show this couple who we really are,
what we represent, we gotta support them.
And so they had something called best seitan or kiss a thon in english and
the kiss a thon was held in the same park where the couples were accosted.
And here's what it looks like.
Here's some images and tweets to share with you.
One person shared an image and said, an image of two men kissing I believe and
it says today, we said that they are not going to continue intimidating us,
We are going to continue loving and living in freedom even if it bothers you love
it and it really shouldn't bother anyone.
Here's another tweet for kissing in a park.
A couple of boys were beaten with a stick.
The answer will always be more kisses, More love.
I love it so much.
It's gonna make me cry.
It's just sweet.
It's sweet.
I love when I see communities come together to support one another.
I love when people are like, you're gonna be hateful.
No, I'm gonna step in and I'm going to defend the people who are needlessly being
harassed for being decent loving human beings.
>> Yeah, just it definitely it's it's good but
like I start to feel a little bit queasy thinking about like if
that was in America like think about some of the groups what they would want to do
to an organization like an organized event like that.
Like I think we can we need to counter the hate with love but
that doesn't make the hate go away necessarily.
Like there are people who would have loved to have just driven through that crowd
with SUVs.
Like we have a lot of really really hateful people and so
we do need to love but we also at the same time need strength.
We need to gain power.
We need to protect people with the community and
with understanding acceptance but also with the law as well.
>> Yeah, but look,
let me let me be clear in Colombia the laws are in the right place, right?
So there are laws against discriminating against members of the LGBTQ community.
Same sex marriage is legalized adoption is legalized for same sex couples.
If it were different, then I'd agree with you right?
This isn't the United States, we are uniquely violent country when it comes to
political violence and gun violence and you're right about all of that.
But please don't take away from the good inspirational part of this,
because here's what we don't have in the United States.
I don't think we do have people who are willing to intervene the way that this
group of loving individuals did to show support.
I think that we're super atomized,
I think people are afraid to defend one another in real life.
There's a lot of twitter warrior stuff going on,
which honestly doesn't amount to much.
But when you see someone being threatened physically in public because of
who they are, because of their identity, you know, I just wish we had more
of a culture where people came together and like stomp that out right away.
I'm not saying there are no examples of it, I'm sure there are some,
but I think the reason why the story stood out to me so much is because we don't see
it as much as I'd like to in the United States, I'd love to see our communities
come together to defend people who get attacked by violent right wing mops.
And finally, just I want to end on this wonderful image of the woman
with the stick because they photoshopped her to hold a cake flag.
I love it, I love it so much