Three dead in gay festival shooting

Three men have been shot dead by gunmen at an LGBT festival in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco.

According to AFP, the killers struck at the La Reina Gay [Gay Queen] Festival on Sunday, not only killing the three victims, aged between 23 and 33, but also wounding five other people.

It is not known if the motive for the attack was homophobia. Mexico reportedly has second highest LGBT-hate related murder rates in the world (with Brazil having the highest). The region has, however, also been plagued by drug related violence.

In May, the Citizens’ Commission Against Homophobic Hate Crimes reported that there have been 1,218 homicides with anti-LGBT undertones reported in Mexico over the past 19 years. Most of the victims have been gay men.

Just days before the shooting, the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice reaffirmed that a measure banning gay marriage in the state of Jalisco was unconstitutional.

The court previously ruled in June that the legal definition of marriage must encompass same-sex couples.