Former Brazilian Presidential Candidate Fined in US$8,000 for “Homophobic” Comments
By Julio
Severo
The
Justice Department of the São Paulo State has maintained, February 21, its
decision to fine the former Brazilian presidential candidate Levy Fidelix
(PRTB) in about US$8,000. The fine was originally imposed by the Special
Commission on Homophobic Discrimination over comments Fidelix made in a
presidential debate broadcast on TV in 2014.
 |
| Levy Fidelix |
“The large intestine
does not reproduce… How can I, a family man and a grandfather, be afraid of
losing votes? I prefer not having such votes, but to be a moral father and a
moral grandfather to teach his child, to instruct his grandchild. Let us end
this. I just read that the Holy Father, the Pope, expelled a pedophile from the
Vatican. He did very well. He is right! We train our children all their lives
in a religious way so that they may really find a good family way.”
Fidelix’s condemnation is definitive. The prosecution against him had
been dragging itself since 2014. In spite that Fidelix, who is a devout
Catholic, used every legal recourse to defend himself, he lost his case. According
to the Justice Department of the São Paulo State, the Special Commission on
Homophobic Discrimination understood that “Fidelix exceeded the limits of free
speech, going on to incite a hate speech against the LGBT population,
encouraging aggression, violence and segregation for this social group,
including spreading the false sense of political legitimation of discriminatory
behaviors.”
Yet, this
is not the only legal assault on Fidelix. Dragging itself since 2014 is also a condemnation
by the São Paulo Supreme Court to force him to pay a fine of R$ 1 million (over
US$300,000) in a public civil action filed by the LGBT movement. He has been
fighting the condemnation for three years.
He will
have to pay US$8,000 for his recent legal defeat and, if eventually he loses
the second legal case, he will have to pay more US$300,000.
In
the time of the debate in 2014, all the three other candidates condemned Fidelix.
Workers’
Party candidate Dilma Rousseff, who won the presidential election, but eventually
was impeached, said about his view: “I have already said that I am against
homophobia and I think Brazil has reached such a degree of civility that we
cannot live together with acts and words of discrimination leading to violence.
I think that homophobia should be outlawed.” Rousseff was a leftist with
Venezuelan and Cuban connections.
Brazilian
Socialist Party candidate Marina Silva said that the declarations of Levy
Fidelix were “homophobic and unacceptable in any circumstance.” In the TV show,
she had committed herself to mobilize her party, Rede Sustentabilidade
(Sustainability Network), to carry on a lawsuit against Fidelix for
“homophobia.” Strangely, Silva was eventually portrayed, by a propaganda from
an unknown source, as “conservative” evangelical and even Pentecostal in the
U.S. media, which was silent on Fidelix and his much more conservative stances.
PSDB
candidate Aécio Neves moaned about Fidelix’s declarations, saying, “We
absolutely repel those declarations. And as I have already said more than once,
in my view all kind of discrimination is crime. Homophobia too.”
Three
years after the debate, and with the fall of the Rousseff administration last year and
the consequent defeat of left-wing parties, there was the hope that Fidelix
would not be punished over his Catholic views on homosexuality, especially
with the extraordinary growth of conservative evangelical movements that are
pushing the Brazilian politics to the Right.
Yet,
the legal system in Brazil seems to have absorbed years and years of
pro-homosexuality cultural socialism. The legal and social forces at the
service of the gay agenda want now to make Fidelix into a “criminal” example to
discourage any Brazilian conservatives from expressing their views on
homosexuality.
With
information from O Globo.
Portuguese
version of this article: Ex-candidato
presidencial Levy Fidelix é condenado a pagar R$ 25 mil por comentários
“homofóbicos”
Source: Last Days Watchman
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