Esteban Arce Herrera is one of the most important hate ideology leaders in Mexico. He is a character who, since his alleged experience of the Virgin Mary appearing to him on a trip to Europe, has been campaigning for hatred against feminism, sexual diversity, the poor, against some foreign athletes and for preventive vaccination against Covid -19 to stoke . For this reason, the fact that this TV presenter was invited by the Autonomous University of Puebla caused surprise, confusion and a strong wave of criticism (UAP) to give a lecture to students of this study house.
Arce is one of the spokesmen for the most radical right in the country, not to say the most primitive, which claims that in Mexico there is a conspiracy against families and the Catholic religion, provoking a rejection of science-based education, the dissemination of subjects sexuality, gender rights and religious plurality.
The presence of Estaban Arce at one of the most important public universities in Latin America comes at a very sensitive moment, when efforts by the extreme right to abolish free textbooks have been revived under the absurdity that their content is part of a strategy to “sow the communist virus ‘ among school children.
Or worse, the communicator is an ally of the National Family Front, a radical organization that is spreading the nonsense that it wants to strip children from elementary schools, from the public sector, and of their gender identity so that the majority of Mexicans abandon the traditional family model .
At 61, with a degree in industrial relations, a frustrated soccer player, a radio and TV presenter, Arce has become a Catholic fundamentalist. This Thursday he was invited to a conference in front of thousands of students at the UAP Arena as part of a drug prevention campaign titled, “Don’t Go Too Far.”
One could understand that Esteban Arce was invited to a private university like the UPAEP, which openly describes itself as a Catholic institution, but not to the UAP, which is a public, critical and popular university.
The UAP is an institution that promotes social inclusion and respect for human rights, fights discrimination, defends the diversity of ideas and, above all, has one of the most important scientific communities in Mexico. In other words, anything Esteban Arce hates is encouraged.
As if that wasn’t enough, the UAP has been one of the main nuclei of the various feminist movements in the state of Puebla and is a study house where the student community has settled with the support of the institution’s rectory, which sparked a fight against teachers accused of sexual harassment became.
In other words, it is one of the universities where the MeToo movement was best understood and developed, rocking the world of entertainment, financial, political and even cultural elites by allowing numerous complaints against powerful sex offenders.
It is therefore inappropriate and incomprehensible that the doors of the UAP are opening to Esteban Arce, a man who does not hide his hatred of feminist movements and of sexual and social diversity.
You just need to memorize a few of his phrases, such as:
“In the world there are only two different and complementary beings: man and woman, there are no more. There is a dog and a bitch, there is no bitch.”
“Attempting an abortion is cutting a baby’s throat.”
Or when he recounted that at the Azcapotzalco mayor’s office in Mexico City, a driver who wasn’t driving with GPS was assaulted, robbed, and “then they’re going to rape you again… you’re going to stay to live with the one who raped you.
“Gender ideology, which is spreading around the world after Mexico, wants us to understand things that are inconsistent with human nature … it means denying human nature and fundamental values.”
Esteban Arce is dedicated to running conferences for youth from Catholic movements, where he stands out for his hostility and ridicule towards young people who question his hate speech against homosexuals, feminists and women who terminate pregnancy.
One of the most outstanding participations took place in October 2017 during the Marian Congress entitled “Guadalupe and Fátima: Message of Hope”, which was attended by thousands of students from Catholic schools from all over the country.
There he claimed that on a journey to the sanctuary of Medjugorje in Europe, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to him through a luminous figure. He told it more or less like this:
“What struck me was that there was a lady standing next to me with a little girl who seemed angry; Unbeknownst to me, he asked my name, what I was doing there and why I had come this far, while hurling insulting words against God and the Virgin. I was very scared at that moment, I thought I would never see her again; We returned the next day and met the same girl who was already calmer.”
“From that day on I tried to change everything through prayer. When I returned to my regular job from this trip, I decided that in each of my programs I would leave a positive message to promote the protection of the family, the unborn and the values of society.”
