Friday, May 24, 2019

Brazil's Supreme Court Rules Homophobia Is a Crime

Brazil Supreme Court.
As Brazil's horrid right wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, takes steps to wage war on LGBT Brazilians much as Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, has waged war on LGBT Americans, the Brazil's Supreme Court has voted that homophbia and anti-LGBT discrimination is a crime.  Both Trump and Bolsonaro are motivated against LGBT citizens for the same reason: they depended on the support of far right Christians for their election to office and they need the same ignorance and hate embracing "Christians" to maintain whatever popular support they continue to enjoy. That said, Bolsonaro is much more cut out of the same cloth as Mike Pence - a man some think is a deeply closeted and self-loathing gay. How the Court's ruling will impact Bolsonaro's wave of attacks at LGBT rights remains to be seen, but hopefully LGBT rights will prevail over Bolsonaro's campaign of anti-LGBT hatred.  Aljazeera looks at the Court's ruling.  Here are excerpts:

A majority in Brazil's Supreme Court has voted to make homophobia and transphobia a crime, like racism, a decision coming amid fears the country's far-right president will roll back LGBT social gains.
Six of the Supreme Federal Tribunal's 11 judges have voted in favour of the measure. The five other judges will vote in a court session on June 5, but the result will not be modified. The measure will take effect after all the justices have voted.
Racism was declared a crime in Brazil in 1989 with prison sentences of up to five years. The court's judges ruled that homophobia should be framed within the racism law until the country's Congress approves legislation specifically dealing with LGBT discrimination.
Brazil's Senate is dealing with a bill to criminalise discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender with sentences of up to five years.
"Racism is a crime against flesh and blood, whether it is a member of the LGBT community, a Jew or an Afro-descendant," justice Luiz Fux said Thursday. The court's judges said the ruling was to address an omission that had left the LGBT community legally unprotected.
While same-sex marriage is legal in Brazil, it is still a dangerous country for members of the LGBT community and has a large evangelical movement often critical of gay rights. According to the rights group the Grupo Gay da Bahia, 420 LGBT people were killed across Brazil in 2018, while at least 141 have been killed so far this year.
 President Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who assumed office on January 1, has a history of offensive comments about gay people, black individuals, women and other minorities, openly acknowledging he is a homophobe. He has said he would rather have a dead son than a gay son.
The ruling "comes at a very good moment, when we have a head of state who is LGBT-phobic," said Bruna Benevides, president of the Niteroi Diversity group. "The Supreme Court assumed the responsibility to protect us."

Would that the U.S. Supreme Court would hand down such a ruling.  The situation in Brazil is a reminder that regardless of the country, right wing Christians are an evil and a threat to the rights of both minorities and the secular majority.

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