The Casa Museo del Campesino hosted this past Thursday night the first edition of the Solidarity Gala Embracing Diversity, an event that brought together the island's business community with third sector entities, along with regional and island political representatives.
The gala, organized by the Business Circle of Lanzarote and which revolved around the vindication of diversity, managed to raise around 120,000 euros for 40 associations on the island. However, at one point in the evening, the initiative was overshadowed by a homophobic behavior of one of those present.
According to La Voz, at one point during the gala and outside the protocol and agenda of the event, a businessman from Lanzarote invited Ye Cabrera to the stage, while they were raising money through a basket. At that moment, Cabrera began to tell a homophobic joke in which he referred to homosexuals as "faggots". Immediately, the representative of an organization fighting for the rights of LGTBI+ people in Lanzarote went on stage and took the microphone to criticize this behavior and question what was wrong with being gay or lesbian.
After what happened, the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, addressed this entity to apologize for the situation, at the same time that representatives of the PSOE, such as the senator for Lanzarote Manuel Fajardo Palarea and the island director of the General State Administration, Pedro Viera, left the event in protest. According to sources present at the gala told this media, Betancort closed the gala defending the importance of tackling homophobic behaviors, of continuing to work and assured that "he will not allow acts of intolerance."
The president of the Business Circle of Lanzarote, José Valle, has stated in statements to this editorial office that this joke "was not planned, that it was not in the protocol and that this person does not belong to the Business Circle. A relaxed act was made to raise more, but with a joke that does not go in this gala or in any". At the same time, he has defended the great reception of this event in the business sector and that this situation "has marked them a lot."