Close encounters of the homophobic kind

I've become accustomed to my quiet little life in Xalapa, for such a small city in a latin country I must say they are very open minded, both my boyfriend and I are quite free to roam about holding hands, being ourselves without much reproach from anyone, yes, we do get the occasional whistle from a construction worker but all in all they let us be, some strangers even seem to rejoice on the fact that we are openly gay and congratulate us as we pass by telling us how cute we look together, the same goes for Mexico city where people are even more accustomed to homosexual couples and where you can actually get married and adopt children if you choose to, so in a way I kinda forgot that I am still living in a Latin American country and today I was unfortunately reminded of the many obstacles we have to surpass to become rightfully accepted in this society.


Very early this morning Pedro and I began our journey from our wonderful home in Xalapa to the airport in Veracruz, it's a short bus ride of about an hour, we didn't sleep at all since we were up late fixing our luggage and such (we also had a few drinks with friends at a local bar) and our flight to Monterrey was supposed to be early that morning, thing is, being the both of us very absent minded, we made the awful mistake of thinking today was march 4th and so in fact we were a day early to our flight. Since the airport is by the beach and we were in fact very tired, we decided to book a hotel here and stay the night. After being charged way to much by a taxi for Mexican standards, booking a room in hotel by the beach and having a pretty nice breakfast included in the price of our room, we went to bed and slept till about 2 p.m., the largest mall in this town was right across the street so we went there to grab a bite to eat and walk thru the stores while we waited for our bellies to digest a hearty meal and then proceed to the pool afterwards. 


Things were going pretty good actually, we were both endeared by watching another gay couple holding hands as we crossed the walking bridge to get to the mall, our meal was pretty good considering that it was mall food, so far people treated us very nicely, even when we went to a store to get some nail polish, the store clerks behaved as if two guys shopping for "female products" was the most normal thing in the world, which is how it should be, so we were both very happy. 


Then we passed in front of Zara and decided to check it out, we usually walk the whole store, children's, men's and women's, since Pedro and I are both pretty petite men we can get away with any type of clothing, as a matter of fact, men's clothing is usually big for us, so we either have to buy women's or kids XL, we were being ourselves, behaving like boyfriends, nothing too sexually explicit, no kissing or anything like that, just holding hands, hugging each other, things you would see in any couple and don't give it a second thought, we were about to ask a clerk if they had a particular women's shirt we liked in large, we were both in a very good mood when a security officer approached us, she was an older woman and seemed a little shy to talk to us, but she gathered herself and told us that "management would like to request that you both please stop behaving that way in our store", my facial expression changed dramatically, I was obviously pissed, I dropped the shirt we liked and started walking out the store, Pedro, being a much lighter and brave soul than I am grabbed me quickly and firmly by the hand, looked me straight in the eyes, told me "never mind them" and started kissing me passionately as we both walked out the store while we kissed, these are the kind of things he does that make me fall so deeply in love with him, anyway, we behaved a little punkishly and gave the guards the finger as we walked out. 


Needles to say that store lost two clients but I guess from then on we entered this homophobic parallel reality, as we walked back  to the hotel holding hands on that very same bridge we saw the gay couple earlier I noticed how a guy looked at us in anger, probably out of fear of him having his own personal issues with homosexuality and a group of construction was being particularly obnoxious with us, one of them even spat at us from the ceiling they were working on, luckily he missed, I blew them a kiss to piss them off even further. 


Now we are both safe in our rooms hidden from the outside world, but I have to wander, what is it about homosexuality that makes people so afraid and on edge? Is gay the new black? and I don't mean that in fashion sense. When will we actually start to tolerate each other as human beings? I mean, isn't it funny how it is perfectly alright for people to go kill other people in foreign countries but it's quite horrendous to see to men holding hands in a mall.