Lima, Peru, Mar 7, 2017 / 16:02 pm
Under the theme "Don't Mess With My Children," more than 1.5 million Peruvians demonstrated on Saturday against gender ideology in the nation's schools.
Organizers said that total attendance surpassed 1.5 million, at demonstrations throughout the country.
Among those present were Congress members Julio Rosas, Carlos Tubino, Nelly Cuadros, Juan Carlos Gonzales, Marco Miyashiro, Roberto Vieira, Federico Pariona and Edwin Donayre.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="es" dir="ltr">Los organizadores de <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/conmishijosnotemetas?src=hash">#conmishijosnotemetas</a> anuncian que más de 1.5 millones marcharon en todo el Perú <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/4M?src=hash">#4M</a> ????<a href="https://twitter.com/Calderon_Martha">@Calderon_Martha</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/acamasca">@acamasca</a> <a href="https://t.co/351NDByffr">pic.twitter.com/351NDByffr</a></p>— ACI Prensa (@aciprensa) <a href="https://twitter.com/aciprensa/status/838175199686164480">March 4, 2017</a></blockquote>
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"Don't Mess With My Children" is a campaign against recent attempts to promote a national curriculum of gender ideology, which teaches that one's 'gender' is chosen and has no connection with one's biological sex.
In January of this year, the Peruvian Bishop's Conference told the government that it "urges the removal from the new National Curriculum those notions coming from gender ideology."
At 2 p.m. on March 4, massive crowds gathered to march toward San Martín Plaza in the center of Lima.
The demonstrators, bearing various signs and slogans, marched down the main districts of the Peruvian capital.
Other cities throughout the country, including Arequipa, Trujillo, Iquitos and Cusco, also saw heavily attended demonstrations.
Fr. Luis Gaspar, episcopal vicar of the Family and Life Commission for the Archdiocese of Lima, stressed that "education as the first right of parents concerning their children is not negotiable."
"We are in a war over morals, a spiritual war, and the battlefield is the minds of their children, and we are going to defend it till the day we die."
Fr. Gaspar also invited the demonstrators to participate in the March for Life which will be held March 25 in Lima.
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