CARNAL NATION

Friends and family of Jorge Steven López Mercado said goodbye to him in a funeral ceremony yesterday in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. The murder of the 19-year-old López Mercado, who was found decapitated, dismembered, and burned by the side the road in the town of Cayey.  Juan A. Martínez Matos was charged with the murder, plus three weapons violations and one count of hiding evidence. The excuse that Martínez Matos gave to police is one that will be familiar to anyone with a cursory knowledge: the gay panic defense. On discovering that López Mercado was a gay man and not a female prostitute, Martínez Matos flew into a rage and killed him. LGBT activists across the world are calling for the case to be tried as a hate crime. It would be the first time that hate crime laws were used in Puerto Rico for a crime against an LGBT person.

At the funeral yesterday, López Mercado's mother spoke of learning that her son was gay (video below):

I said to him: "Steven tell me the truth, trust in me. What's going on?" And he lowered his head and started to cry and told me "Mommy, I am gay." And I said to him, "Aw, son, if I loved you, now I will love you more." I said to him, "What gives me fear is what's waiting in the streets, the rejection, the stares." But he said, "Mommy, now you know, and that is enough," and he was happy for that reason. He took a weight off his shoulders, and I urge everyone, particularly parents, that if they suffer because of society, they suffer even more when the family condemns them. Steven was happy, I know, he loved me and I loved him.