Left: Alex Freyre and Jose Maria Di Bello; Right: Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how sometimes in the international community the gay rights movement can move simultaneously forward and back. It can also move along another axis as well: up and down. Occasionally, two different events will occur in tandem in different parts of the world that simultaneously highlight the highs and lows of the global queer experience. Over the past week, those who follow the international press have seen just such a situation unfold, as Argentina’s granting of Latin America’s first same-sex marriage license and the brutal slaying of a Puerto Rican teen have shared top headline billing.

Let’s begin with the good news. It was only a couple of months ago that the international queer community watched with excitement as Uruguay became the first country in Latin America to extend adoption rights to gay and lesbian couples. This same exuberance was witnessed again as Buenos Aires, the capital of a country whose parliament was already toying with legalizing same-sex marriage, officially granted its first marriage license to a gay couple, Alex Freyre and Jose Maria Di Bello. While this was made possible by a court ruling that said the same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional, it doesn’t appear to be an anomaly or the work or a rogue “activist” judge. According to the Washington Post:

“On December 1st we will become man and man,” said Di Bello, welling up in tears as a city clerk gave him the paperwork.

Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri said the city will not appeal – in effect inviting other same-sex couples to pursue their rights in court as well.

“We have to live with and accept this reality: the world is moving in this direction,” Macri said Friday, adding that it is important officials “safeguard the right of each person to freely choose with whom they want to form a couple and be happy.”

Can we just pause and reflect on those words for a moment? It’s one thing for gay rights supporters to say over and over again that it’s only a matter of time before we attain full equality and that history is moving in that direction, but it’s another thing entirely to hear it come from the mouth of an elected official. If only those same words could come out of the mouths of officials in oh, say, Maine or California.

While the victory is major for LGBT peoples in Argentina, it’s also a large step forward for the region as a whole, and it may lead to further advances in other countries in Latin America. The same article points out:

Currently no country in Latin America allows gay marriage, though some jurisdictions allow gay partners to form civil unions with many of the same rights… Buenos Aires in 2002 became the first city in Latin America to allow same-sex civil unions, and Mexico City followed in 2007. Uruguay has legalized civil unions nationwide.

Call me naive, ladies and gentlemen, but that sounds like a trend to me. Hopefully this forward momentum can be maintained as time goes on.

Just as our community was flying high, however, a gruesome event garnered international attention and brought us back down to earth. About 3600 miles from Buenos Aires, in Puerto Rico, a gay teen was brutally murdered:

Nineteen year-old Jorge Steven Mercado dreamed about working in the fashion industry. He was also a volunteer in organizations advocating for HIV prevention and gay rights. But, last week his body was found dismembered, decapitated, and partially burned, in a rural area in Guavate, Cayey, Puerto Rico.

This was not a random murder, however. Puerto Rican police have arrested a 26-year-old man, Juan Martinez Matos, who claims he was looking for female prostitutes, but instead took home Lopez Mercado. He’s reportedly planning on using the “gay panic” defense (the most classic example of victim-blaming and a tactic that ranks right up with with the original Twinkie Defense on the list of worst excuses for killing a gay person). According to some reports:

Juan A. Martinez Matos, 26, a married father of four, confessed he was cruising the “red light” district of Caguas, a city south of San Juan, looking for women and picked up 19-year-old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado thinking he was a woman, the report said.

When the two went into a house “the suspect (allegedly) found out that Lopez was a man, after Lopez made sexual advances, and as a result of the rage, Matos did what he did,” the report quoted in the newspaper El Nuevo Dia said.

As in the case of marriage in Buenos Aires, this incident may have both domestic and international implications. Because Puerto Rico is a self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States, it is subject to our laws. While Puerto Rico passed a hate crime provision in 2002, it has yet to be used. The question now is whether or not Matos will be tried under the new Matthew Shepherd Act that was signed unto law last month.

This terrible incident also has international symbolic implications. While Puerto Rico is a part of the U.S., it’s also among the four Greater Antilles, which also include Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica, and is typically viewed as a gay-friendly oasis in a region of the world that can be famously hostile to LGBT peoples. That such a thing would happen there is considered a further disappointment to many.

One positive thing that can be said about both of these situations – they did indeed make international, mainstream headlines. One of the reasons I began this column was because I was tired of having to work so hard to seek out international gay stories in the media. That both of these have been widely reported on in the U.S. press is heartening, and hopefully they will both help to energize and motivate international queer activists to keep up the fight, albeit in different ways.