A 12-year-old Mexican boy became an overnight icon after a journalist snapped a photograph of him attempting to block an anti-LGBT demonstration. The image was shot at a Saturday protest in Celaya, Guanajuato that targeted President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposal to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. Rodríguez’s captivating photo has drawn comparisons to the famous “Tank Man” shot of a young Chinese man stepping in front of a line of tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, just one day after China’s military killed hundreds of protesters. The journalist told Regeneración that he thought the boy, who has not been named in the media, was “just playing.” However, he soon found out that the 12-year-old had a personal reason for getting involved. “I have an uncle that is gay, and I don’t like people hating him,” the boy reportedly told Rodríguez, according to a translation of the Regeneración article provided by The Huffington Post.

Source: Huffington Post September 12, 2016 19:52 UTC