Brazil: the misogynists and homophobics in our House of Representatives

Marco Feliciano, the new President of the Commission for Human Rights and Minorities of the Brazilian House of Representatives, did it again. Now, O Globo, one of the biggest newspapers in Brazil, is showing an interview that he gave in 2012. In this interview Feliciano said: “When you stimulate a woman to have the same rights as men, she wanted to work, their share as mother starts getting canceled, and so she is not a mother, there's only one way it knows: that she does not marry, or maintain a marriage, a relationship with a person of the same sex, and who will enjoy the pleasures of a union and will not have children. I see a subtle way to reach the family, when you stimulate people release their instincts and live with people of the same sex, you destroy the family, you create a society where only have homosexuals, you see that society tends to disappear because it does not generate children”. (“Quando você estimula uma mulher a ter os mesmos direitos do homem, ela querendo trabalhar, a sua parcela como mãe começa a ficar anulada, e, para que ela não seja mãe, só há uma maneira que se conhece: ou ela não se casa, ou mantém um casamento, um relacionamento com uma pessoa do mesmo sexo, e que vão gozar dos prazeres de uma união e não vão ter filhos. Eu vejo de uma maneira sutil atingir a família; quando você estimula as pessoas a liberarem os seus instintos e conviverem com pessoas do mesmo sexo, você destrói a família, cria-se uma sociedade onde só tem homossexuais, você vê que essa sociedade tende a desaparecer porque ela não gera filhos”). 

The absurd is that Feliciano is not alone. He just reflects the thinking advocated by members of the majority of the Evangelical Parliamentary Front, a very powerful and ultraconservative group in Brazilian politics. His thoughts represent a misogynist and homophobic way of understanding our society, which has undergone vast socio-politico-ideological changes in the last few years. Feliciano is a product of a country that goes, at the same time, one step forward and one step behind.

For Hildete Pereira de Melo, a very important scholar known for his acting and his studies linked to the feminist movement in Brazil, "assign responsibility to homosexuals for the destruction of the family is a delusion". The thing is that this ideological/cultural war is getting dirtier and crazier in Brazil.

The worst is that the number of congressmen linked to the evangelical churches is growing and the future seems not so bright at the moment.