Another crowned Queen joins the anti-LGBT dark side

Karyme Lozano at the San Francisco Gay Parade 2008

Mexican actress Karyme Lozano, Queen of the 2008 San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade, joins the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage in a conservative Latino election initiative benefiting Carly Fiorina

Mexican actress Karyme Lozano was crowned Queen of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade in 2008. So I was shocked to hear that she has joined the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles in a new initiative benefiting radically conservative Carly Fiorina, who is running for pro-LGBT Senator Barbara Boxer’s U.S. Senate seat. At a press conference this week hosted at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, the Washington-DC-based conservative Latino group announced the $1 million-dollar “Tus valores” (“Your Values”) campaign to bring their toxic agenda to California by helping elect anti-equality candidates like Fiorina.

While it is troubling to see Karyme Lozano blatantly disregard the LGBT community’s warm embrace, it is even more disturbing to see her align herself with a group that disingenuously propagates the Latino values of familia y tradición as rigid conservative convictions. Furthermore, to add insult to injury, it seems that Lozano, who serves on the advisory board of the misguided Latino conservative group alongside with fellow actor Eduardo Verastegui, who in 2008 campaigned against marriage equality, has taken bold steps to joining the hate mongering anti-marriage groups.

The Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a project of American Principles in Action, made public they received a significant contribution from the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage, yet as the LA Times reports, none of the parties involved in the fundraiser have “filed financial records with the Internal Revenue Service — nor are they required to.” What we do know is that these groups will continue injecting their money into the campaigns of anti-equality candidates in order to sway voters’ opinions. Their target is now the 13 million Latinos that call California their home. We should expect to see much of what we saw in the 2008 elections again in the coming months as these groups continue to fuel the anti-LGBT rhetoric already present in Latino media by spreading the same vicious lies and scare tactics used during the Prop. 8 campaign.

While we know a large majority of Latinos identify as Catholics, we’ve also learned that many of them are very likely to become supportive of the right for same-sex couples to marry. Among those Latinos who identify as Catholics, 57 percent are already supportive of marriage equality. Additionally, thanks to the efforts of Californians working to win marriage back for all, we’ve seen an increase in the support for civil marriage rights for same-sex couples, with the majority of Latinos now supporting these rights.
In the last year, public opinion has significantly progressed on the issue of marriage equality; yet there is still much work to be done. We cannot allow our Golden State, which has some of the most comprehensive protections for LGBT people and minorities, to regress into a one with a climate of hostility and fear. We should not become content with the positive numbers on our favor, but instead we should work together toward redoubling our work. The fight for full equality for all calls for our combined efforts in order to successfully stop Lozano, Verastegui and their anti-LGBT group from importing hate into our state.

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