Peru's big corporations come out in support of gay marriage

GlobalPost
Rainbow flag

LIMA, Peru — It’s not just Apple, Google, Facebook and other West Coast progressive corporations that have publicly celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of gay marriage.

In Peru, one of Latin America’s most conservative societies, similar responses from some of the country’s biggest companies have taken many by surprise.

The country’s largest private bank, the Banco de Credito de Peru (BCP), wasted no time temporarily changing its brand colors to the rainbow flag of LGBT rights, including on its Facebook page:

Peru's BCP bank displaying a rainbow on its Facebook page.

And Inca Kola, the fluorescent yellow soda that is a national drink here — and as Peruvian a brand as it gets — also tweeted its support.

The slogan reads: “Nothing is impossible for love in the times of Inca Kola.”

Interestingly, neither company needed to take a stance either way on the issue of gay marriage. And both must have known that doing so would stir up a hornet’s nest of angry responses in a country whose congress indefinitely shelved its own civil union law in April. 

More from GlobalPost: Insults, applause, ridiculousness, Peru’s first openly gay congressman has seen it all 

The backlash was not long in coming.

Lima’s ultra-conservative archbishop, Juan Luis Cipriani, described the US Supreme Court ruling as a “tragic decision.” 

And one Facebook group, calling itself Real Couples, urged members to cut up their BCP credit cards:

The post reads: “If you want to finance the gay lobby, it won’t be with my money.”

But the backlash only prompted its own backlash.

The highlight of that was this derisive story from satirical website the Pamphlet, Peru’s online equivalent of The Onion, headlined: “Homophobe destabilizes BCP by withdrawing 20 sols [$6.30] from his savings account.” 

El Panfleto (The Pamphlet) is Peru's version of The Onion.

Below the image of the crestfallen guinea pig — a national Peruvian dish, by the way — and ripped up credit card, the story begins: “INCREDIBLE! A subject identified by the initials M.A.C.H.I.T.O., 34, has caused a commotion, a disaster, a scandal of apocalyptic proportions by withdrawing, in a clear sign of protest against the blasphemous gay lobby, all his BCP savings.”

“Machito,” for those of you who don’t speak Spanish, is the diminutive of “macho.” It probably best translates to English as “little macho man.”

More from GlobalPost: This map shows where same-sex couples can marry across Latin America

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