Lima, Peru, December 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In response to a campaign titled “Imaginary Couples,” in which famous heterosexuals are portrayed as homosexual couples to promote gay “marriage,” a group of anonymous young Peruvians have launched their own marriage-promoting campaign on Facebook, titled “Real Couples.”
The Facebook campaign, created on November 25th, reached 1,000 likes on the first day, and by Friday has over 34,000.
“There’s lots of us, because in Peru true marriage, between one man and one woman, is defended, and the increasing number of followers and those who send us their pictures demonstrates it,” one of the administrators told ACI Prensa.
“Our idea was that people would upload their own pictures, but due to ‘trolls,’ people that post aggressive and insulting messages, we decided that it was better that those whose desired, sent us their pictures and we would add the text,” they explain.
The group, who has asked to stay anonymous, explained the initiative emerged as a response to the campaign launched by one of Peru’s most influential journalists, Beto Ortiz, titled Parejas Imaginarias (Imaginary Couples), which shows famous Latin American heterosexuals pretending to be a same-sex couple.
These pictures, displayed throughout the city of Lima, show journalists, actors and politicians as fictitious gay couples with the phrase: “Love is not a crime.”
The campaign is a copy of Olivier Ciappa’s “Les Couples Imaginaires,” launched in France earlier this year, which portrays famous people like Lara Fabian and Eva Longoria pretending to be a same-sex couple in order to fight against “homophobia.”
“We are not ‘homophobic,’” the Facebook group told Peruvian news service elcomercio.pe. “We value homosexual people and respect them. We believe they deserve to be happy. … But marriage is not a whim or for personal satisfaction, it’s an institution formed naturally by a man and a woman. That’s what’s real whether we like it or not.”
The “Real Couples” Facebook profile reads: “We defend natural marriage, the true one, between one man and one woman. We are not ‘imaginary couples,’ but Real Couples.”
Over 450 “real couples” of all ages have sent their pictures, some with their children, to be published as part as the campaign, which has reached users from Mexico, Spain and Argentina.
Peruvian congressman Julio Rosas, known for his pro-life and pro-family position, also sent a picture in which he appears with his wife.
A motion to legalize homosexual civil unions has recently been proposed in Congress.
A survey conducted on November 8th by the Peruvian Company for Market Studies and Public Opinion showed that up to 70.3% of Peruvians oppose the legalization of homosexual “marriage.”
To send your picture and join the campaign, visit the Facebook page.