Behind the homosexual tsunami in Brazil

Julio Severo

Until 1994, gay rights and parades were virtually unheard of and non-existent in Brazil. Yet, from 1995 on, after the first ILGA conference in Rio de Janeiro, the homosexual activism became increasingly powerful in visibility, until the arrival of the Lula government, when their highest intentions and values became a threat and reality predominating in the Brazilian society.

The social and moral structure of Brazil in the decade of 1950 and 1960 was basically strong, largely because of the predominant Catholicism in more than 90 percent of the population. In many places, evangelicals were threatened with lynching if they tried to evangelize, especially in small towns. Homosexual activity was a shameful and secret behavior, despised by the society. A pregnant girl out of wedlock ran the risk of being expelled from her house. The Brazilian people were socially conservative, although the Carnival and public prostitution were tolerated.

The largest threat to the society came from radical leftist movements. Communists almost took control in Brazil in 1964, but the military took over the government and was able to stop a communist coup.

The Catholic Church was a driving force against the communist threat, but after the Vatican II many Catholic leaders began surrendering to the Theology of Liberation. In the decades of 1970 and 1980, traditional Protestant churches embraced Protestant versions of this theology. In late 1990s and early 2000, Pentecostal and charismatic churches also subscribed. These leftist Christians are today known as progressistas. The Brazilian term progressista (progressive), according to the noted Aurélio Dictionary of Portuguese Language, means “someone who, though not being a member of a socialist or communist party, accepts and/or supports socialist or Marxist principles”. So evangélicos progressistas are evangelicals committed to supporting and promoting the socialist agenda.

Liberation Theology can boast an important victory in Brazil, for having a 73.6 percent Catholic population, Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world. Protestants are 15.4 percent. “Progressive” Christians are a growing presence and influence among both these two Christian religions.

After the military left the government in 1985, leftist politicians, supported by the Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (Base Ecclesiastical Communities [BECs], where progressive Catholic leadership encouraged Catholic poor communities to get involved in political action according to the Liberation Theology tenets), began to heavily affect the political and social system, leading Brazil gradually leftward. BECs were the most important support behind the main popular leftist party in Brazil, Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party), better known by its acronym PT.

With such leftism, abortion and homosexuality began to be promoted as rights in the decade of 1990. (In the decade of 1980, there were some leftists advocating abortion and homosexuality, but while abortion advocates had limited visibility and no legal influence, the rare gay advocates had none at all — except in a very few isolated examples, especially in universities.) Even though there are no anti-sodomy laws in the Brazilian society, its religious heritage had always been an important factor discouraging such behavior.

Less conservative in the heart and more in the image: the current political ethics in Brazil

In Brazil, abortion is presently legal only in cases of rape and when the life of a mother is at risk. Because of religious influence, the fight to expand legal abortion has faced considerable obstacles to achieve the success that feminists achieved in the US in 1973.

However, that religious influence, both Catholic and evangelical, is increasingly less conservative and more liberal, even though the most of the population does not understand the gradual change.

Nevertheless, the best way to popular appeal in Brazil is to have a conservative image. To draw votes, political candidates in Brazil are supposed to present the image of being conservative Christians on moral issues. Even radical Socialists (who are clearly pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality in their political actions out of the election times) make this kind of appeal. On the other hand, “conservative” candidates have to demonstrate their sympathy for the welfare state. Yet, these “conservative” are not solid in their moral stand on abortion and specially on homosexuality, and eventually make some moral compromises after their election.

Presently, Brazil knows no major political figure solid in practical actions against abortion and homosexuality. The few Catholics and evangelicals vocally opposed to abortion are not politicians. Evangelicals are only a minority, but their votes are eagerly coveted. In 2002, presidential candidate Lula was promoted among many evangelical leaders by a moral and religious appeal. In the past, these same “conservative” leaders (traditional, Pentecostal, and charismatic) had always disliked Lula and his party as a communist threat. Yet, with the assistance of an American minister — the Rev. Jesse Jackson — they changed their minds. Jackson, who was brought to Brazil by PT especially for that mission, was able to convince them that Lula was not such a threat. According to the Internet newspaper Folha Online, Rev. Jackson has been a friend of many years standing with PT [1]. In the PT official website there is even an exclusive page flattering “comrade Jackson”.[2]

So persuaded, these leaders became signers of the public document Manifesto de Evangélicos (Evangelical Manifesto), proclaiming to the evangelical population their stand for Lula. Among the great number of signatories were Rev. Nilson Fanni, former president of the World Baptist Alliance, and Rev. Gilherminho Cunha, a high-ranking Presbyterian minister and president of the Bible Society of Brazil. In the paper which was amply distributed by PT, all of those leaders state:

We support Lula for President because we recognize that several proposals of his Government Program are similar to the prophetic calling of the Church of Jesus Christ.

We express our public support to Lula’s candidacy in order to oppose the wicked and insignificant rumors leading some to an understanding that his election to the Presidency of Republic will obstruct the walk of the Evangelical Churches.

This public document was prepared with the assistance of MEP (Movimento Evangélico Progressista, or Progressive Evangelical Movement). Individual denominations also expressed their support, especially mainline liberal Protestant churches. For the first time Pentecostal and charismatic churches copied their example. Comunidade Evangélica Sara Nossa Terra (Heal Our Land Evangelical Community), a large national denomination, said on its website in 2002:

Evangelical Manifesto In Support To Lula’s Candidacy For President of Brazil (excerpts)

We manifest our support to the Lula candidacy because of an established commitment between an eventual Lula government and the evangelicals here represented.

We support Lula because:

He has been demonstrating that he believes in a balanced and democratic Socialism, respecting the highest tenets of the democracy;

He has been affirming that his beliefs in the highest values of the Holy Scriptures: God, family, moral, ethics, religious freedom, and democracy;

He has made a commitment to develop our society, having the Church as a partner with his government;

He understands and believes in the existence and in the historical role of the Church as an instrument for the formation of the fundamental values for human life, both in individual and social aspects;

His greatest motivation for his government project is to help the poor and less favored people, according to the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures.

MESSAGE TO THE BRAZILIAN CHURCH

WHY WE SUPPORT LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA AS PRESIDENT OF REPUBLIC:

Lula deserves a vote of trust from our society… Lula today is one of the more trusted leaders of our nation.

Lula has made a partnership commitment with the evangelical churches for social construction, removing the stigma that evangelicals are only sought in election times. He has also been declaring that he believes in the highest values of the Holy Scriptures, as “God, Family, Morality, Ethics, Religious Freedom, Democracy, and the Option for the Poor”.

Thus, we see that the rumors saying that Lula and PT are noxious to the Gospel are now refuted, demonstrating that radical attitudes that were taken by other PT local administrations were isolated initiatives.

For all of those reasons the Sara Nossa Terra Bishop Council is confident to vote for and support the Lula candidacy for president of Brazil.

Robson Rodovalho

Bishop President

on behalf of the Sara Nossa Terra Bishop Council

Comunidade Sara Nossa Terra was, until late 1990s, an anti-Marxist church. After many years of an anticommunist stand, it was a surprise to watch evangelicals and their leaders turning left. The moralistic appeal of Lula among evangelicals was also a surprise: he promised to evangelical leaders that his future administration would not promote abortion and homosexuality. The result? After victory in the election, Lula and his party kept working on the same agenda that they had in the past. PT was again the main abortion and homosexuality supporter in Brazil.

Even though most of the Christian denominations supporting Lula and PT do not approve of homosexuality and abortion, their shift to the role of evangélicos progressistas has left them in a strange and paradoxical position politically.

Homosexuality in Brazil

No official statistics are gathered in Brazil to determine the number of homosexuals. According to the Lula government data, they are over 10 percent of the population. Such data come from NGOs that have contacts with American NGOs. Their basic source is the Kinsey Report. Almost all the other official data on homosexuals in Brazil has direct or indirect influence from information common in the U.S. and not from Brazilian studies. In fact, in spite of the predominant, leftist anti-Americanism in Brazil, there is an almost perfect leftist cloning of the American homosexual reality.

There may be a religious factor in Brazilian homosexuality. A minority of the Brazilian population adheres to Candomblé and other Afro-Brazilian religions (similar to Santeria), where homosexuality is common. For a comparison, there are some 19,000 recognized Catholic parishes in Brazil. Informal Candomblé temples are supposed to number some 12,000 in Rio de Janeiro alone.[3] In Candomblé, many priests and priestesses are homosexual.

Luiz Mott, the leader of the homosexual movement in Brazil, is a firm adherent of Candomblé. Mott is a university professor and an expert in Black studies, including issues of affirmative action measures for Blacks.

Many famous Brazilians turn to Afro-Brazilian religions in search of miracles to solve personal or family problems. Even former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, though a Marxist and an atheist, had sympathy for and sometimes visited Candomblé rituals.

Homosexuals were always a very small group in the society, and the current impressive homosexual growth in Brazil is due to the seductive propaganda directed to the public. Soap operas, very popular TV shows in Brazil, give the public positive images of homosexual characters. On the other hand, conservative Catholics and evangelicals are represented as strange, intolerant, suspicious, fanatical, and unfriendly characters.

Thus, surrounded by the artillery of the homosexual favoritism on the media, an increasingly large number of curious youths demonstrate interest in homosexuality.

Behind the tsunami

Capitulation to the homosexual movement on TV has been practically total, where many shows use strategies that distort reality, presenting to the public a false world where gays and lesbians are glad, happy, fulfilled, and, usually, more intelligent and sensitive individuals than normal men and women. The “dark side is properly hidden, so that nobody will see that their behavior is linked to an indisputable reality of suffering, where gays live, oppressed by serious mental, emotional, and social dysfunctions.

There is an immense effort to show that those natural consequences don’t have any connection with the abnormality of their sexual acts. That effort also tries, with the assistance of fraudulent research and studies, to prove “scientifically” that the abnormal is as normal as what is really normal. In fact, the document Brazil without Homophobia says: “In the same way that heterosexuality (attraction for a person of the opposite sex) does not have any explanation, so homosexuality does not too. It depends on each person’s sexual orientation.” This document was published by the Lula administration to support its nationwide Brasil sem Homofobia (Brazil Without Homophobia) campaign, which was launched on May 2005. This federal initiative — described as a “National Program for Combating Violence and Discrimination against Gays, Lesbians, Transgender People, and Bisexuals, and for the Promotion of the Citizenship of Homosexuals” — is virtually unique in the world. It aims to strengthen both public and non-governmental institutions that promote gay rights. It does this through education on human rights, both of the general public and within GLBT communities and by encouraging GLBT people to complain to public institutions about violations of their supposed rights.

This federal effort is producing fruits. In São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, there is now the Group for Repression and Analysis of Intolerance Crimes and the Racial and Intolerance Crimes Police Station. “The Racial and Intolerance Crimes Police Station shall, above all, take into consideration cases where society segregates a person for his sexual orientation... Margarette Barreto Gracia, police chief of the new station, pointed out that victims of intolerance crimes should seek out the police station and denounce their aggressor”.[4]

Homophobia, according to the Lula administration, can be obvious or veiled, involving discrimination in selection for employment, rental of housing, entry into the armed forces, medical school, dental school, a theological college, a Christian school...Whatever its manifestation, the Brazilian government believes that so called homophobia inevitably involves injustice and social exclusion.

It wants to eliminate such “homophobia” throughout Brazilian society. To achieve such a wide goal, the Brazil Without Homophobia campaign involves twenty ministries and special secretariats: the Ministries of Foreign Relations, Justice, Education, Health, Labor, and Culture, and the Special Secretariat on Policies for Women, the Special Secretariat on Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality, the Special Secretariat on Human Rights, and the National Secretariat on Public Safety. It also involves a series of other governmental organizations, such as the National Council on Combating Discrimination, State and Municipal Councils on Human Rights, State and Municipal Secretariats on Public Safety, universities, the Office of the Federal Prosecutor for Citizens’ Rights, the Public Ministry of Labor, in addition to the Brazilian Parliament itself.

This massive effort leaves no part of society untouched. The coming generations are also of special government concern. So the Brazilian government for the first time in its history, on April 2006, initiated a partnership with a gay group. With the assistance of the NGO Arco-Íris (Rainbow), the Ministry of Education began training public and private school teachers to address homosexual issues and teach children to fight homophobia.[5] The Lula administration views such partnerships as a necessary strategy, for it has been informed by UNESCO that 60 percent of Brazilian teachers think that homosexual sex is unacceptable.

In the official curriculum of the Ministry of Education, there is the demand that every school fight prejudice against differences. The partnership with Arco-Íris is seen as a way to effectively train teachers to implement the official curriculum itself and to handle issues as human rights (for homosexuals, not Christians), homophobia, gender identity, sexual orientation and diversity. Arco-Íris has received a government grant to accomplish such goals.

Through such a partnership and other efforts from the Brazil Without Homophobia program, children are being indoctrinated systematically in the “Gospel of Sodomy.”[6] There are even textbooks to encourage homosexuality. “In Brazil, there are, at the time being, few titles, but publishers have already shown their interest in this market. Educators too: one of the first books to address the subject is Menino Ama Menino (Boy Loves Boy, publisher: Armazém das Idéias), by Marilene Godinho, which tells of a boy who found that he was in love with another boy. This book is part of the literature package distributed by the Ministry of Education in the public schools”.[7]

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva likes to portray his administration as a Socialist government favoring interests of less developed nations and not accepting American and European influences. Nevertheless, he has imitated their worst examples. His Workers’ Party has employed actions no past government of Brazil did: it has facilitated the introduction of pro-homosexuality laws, and it has been a strong advocate for affirmative action based on racial preferences for minority groups. So for the first time, Brazilian society sees a president acting in a totally new political way.

His actions are not original to Brazil. American and European societies have, under the pressure of special interest groups, known such political experiences for a number of years. Interestingly, in the racial issue, advocates of affirmative action in Europe and in the U.S. are swift to point to and condemn the slavery of blacks by whites in the past and exploit such situations to their extreme political advantage, but they are equally swift to neglect, excuse, or hide the past and current violent slavery of blacks by blacks in some African countries, including modern-day Sudan. So the notion of affirmative action, as originally employed in the developed nations by special interest groups and as copied by countries like Brazil, is a form of ideological oppression that will eventually lead to other forms of oppression, including from the gay-ideology activists.

There should be no doubt that the current Brazilian president has a gay agenda. Twice, Lula expressed his support of the homosexual movement. In June 2005, he sent a letter to the gay parade of Brasilia, saying, “any way of loving is worthwhile.” In June 2006, he reaffirmed such support, by sending to the gay parade of São Paulo the following message:

Fellows,

It is with satisfaction that I answer the kind invitation to address the participants of the 10th GLBT Pride Parade, in São Paulo. I want to greet the organizers of this event and transmit — to all who battle to promote the dignity and the defense of the rights of gays, lesbians, and transgender people — words of encouragement, faith and trust in the results of the efforts that, in partnership, we have been developing, since the beginning of our administration, with the goal to change the reality that we had received.

Our government was established with the firm purpose of combating the threats to the people’s rights based on any kind of prejudice: of origin, race, ethnicity, age, religious belief, political conviction, or sexual orientation.

With that purpose, we have strengthened the Special Secretariat for the Human Rights, which instituted, during our administration, Brazil Without Homophobia, a program to combat violence and prejudice against GLBT and to promote homosexual citizenship. That program has been necessary because all people should be made conscious of human rights, which include the free expression of sexual orientation. People may only be made conscious through publicly integrated politics that include affirmative actions, especially in the educational area.

Human rights education encourages people in a formal and informal way to contribute for the citizenship construction, for the knowledge of those rights, and for the consequent respect to plurality and diversity, not only sexual, but ethnic, racial, cultural, sporting, and religious.

However, schools should not be the only source promoting those ideas: the media should also get involved in this effort, for they have an enormous power for penetrating the society. The media and information outlets, through their programs and images, assume a fundamental role in the human rights education as they are committed to the propagation of ethical and citizenship values.

Because of their role as public opinion shapers, the press, radio, and TV professionals should be a source of production and broadcasting of contents related to tolerance and acceptance of multiple differences, and ultimately, the respect to the human person with a view to establish a culture of peace and love toward the neighbor and build a fairer, kinder, and more solid society.

Our government is firmly determined to defend those values and it wants to continue, especially counting on the cooperative action from the organizations that bring together gays, lesbians, and transgender people to achieve that objective, and it will remain open to welcome other contributions, as in the area of STD prevention.

I want all to know that we remain at your side in this fight. A few days ago, in the Third High Authorities Human Rights Meeting of Mercosur, in Buenos Aires, Brazil suggested the introduction of two items for consideration: the theme of torture and cruel and degrading treatment and the fight against prejudices for sexual orientation. Another initiative came from the Special Secretariat for the Human Rights, launched on June 9, in the State Legislature of São Paulo, the Brazil Without Homophobia program, during solemn session where the legislative authorities from São Paulo celebrated the GLBT Pride Day on the solicitation of State Deputy Ítalo Cardoso [from PT].

I want this parade to result, as has been happening with other similar events, in peace and happiness, with a view to being an important sign of the increasing visibility of the homosexual movement and a sign of consequent gathering of forces in the fight against resistance and prejudice.

Receive my fraternal hug.

President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva [8]

Of course, the Lula support is not limited to words only. The Brazil Without Homophobia program counts on a federal budget of 125 million Real (about 60 million dollars) for 2006. For a nation that has experienced great economic hardship, such an amount is not insignificant. Gay parades, seen by the government as cultural events, also receive grants in the millions.

Such support has produced striking results. In 2005, Brazil was the world champion in gay parades. In 2006, the São Paulo gay parade was the largest in the whole world.

However, the Lula administration has not been aggressive only in its pro-homosexuality domestic push. It also has an international agenda, and it has shown its domestic policies to other nations. Before the United Nations General Assembly, Brazilian Ambassador Frederico Duque Estrada Meyer said Brazil had the program entitled Brazil Without Homophobia, which outlined actions to strengthen public and non-governmental institutions for combating homophobia; capacity-building for professionals involved in promoting the rights of homosexuals; disseminating information of rights and promoting homosexual self-esteem; and stimulating complaints on violations of rights”.[9]

In the Organization of the American States, Brazil introduced a resolution for the establishment of a future Inter-American Convention against Racism and All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance. The resolution was approved in 2005. Its most important ambition was its leading role in a world campaign, in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), to characterize any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation as violence against human rights.

During the April 2003 meeting of the UNCHR, the Brazilian government (supported by Canada and the European Union) introduced its Resolution on “Human Rights and Sexual Orientation.” This resolution recognizes homosexual conduct as a human right. Obviously, Brazil, Canada and the European Union knew that the great majority of international public opinion was against the attitude of giving special rights for individuals practicing homosexuality.

The resolution was a surprise to the Brazilian Congress in Brasilia, which learned about it only some time after the Brazilian delegation in the UN had already presented it. It was a surprise also to the evangelical leaders, for before the 2002 presidential elections, Lula had made the commitment in a meeting with important ministers and bishops not to let his government promote issues favoring abortion and homosexuality. Yet, the Brazilian delegation in the UN, which represents the Brazilian government’s interests and views, has defended just these issues, under a carefully veiled language of “reproductive rights” and “sexual orientation”.[10]

Representative Dr. Elimar Damasceno requested directly from the Brazilian government an explanation for its resolution in the UN. He noted that it “deals with a subject where there are no approved laws in our country and where there is no consensus in our society, because of its religious and cultural consequences”.[11] The Foreign Affairs Ministry in Brasilia officially refuted Rep. Damasceno,

...in response to your last question on “who has authorized the [Brazilian] representatives [in the UN] to present the mentioned Proposal of Resolution,” it is proper to point that... the politics of Brazil in the human rights issues are explicitly favorable to the promotion and protection of the minority rights. [12]

So according to the Brazilian government’s view, those practicing homosexuality are a minority deprived of protection. According to the draft of the resolution:

…human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all human beings, that the universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question and that the enjoyment of such rights and freedoms should not be hindered in any way on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Brazilian Minister Samuel Guimarães, from the Foreign Affairs Ministry, affirmed, “So the main aim of the [resolution] is to guarantee the principle of non-discrimination — the cornerstone of the building of promotion and protection of human rights since its beginning in the United Nations system — regarding groups discriminated against around the world because of their sexual orientation. This position is based on the notion that advancement in the subject of human rights benefiting a discriminated minority represents gain to other groups suffering discrimination…” [13]

Fortunately, the Lula resolution was not successful in 2003. UN Brazilian ambassadors made new endeavors in 2004, and were faced with Muslim opposition. In 2005, the Lula administration gave its resolution up prematurely out of respect to Muslim leaders taking part in the Summit of South American-Arab Countries in Brasilia. Out of respect to them, the Lula administration also cut Israel from the map used by the Foreign Affairs Ministry at the Summit.

In the Lula’s strategic socialistic agenda, homosexuality may be sacrificed for Muslim interests, but not for the Bible or moral interests. It sacrifices Israel much more easily than it sacrifices homosexuality.

Gay strategies for visibility

The main pushes from the homosexual movement are its efforts for visibility, especially through gay parades and public kisses, where gay couples kiss one another challenging social mores. Through such actions, gay militants publicize themselves and their cause. When challenging laws restricting or prohibiting their public kisses, their maneuvers appeal for laws for their protection and against prejudice. So a mere kiss in a busy shopping mall may seem to them a significant legal achievement.

Their major visibility strategy is parades. In 2005, 75 parades throughout Brazil were recorded. In 2006, Brazil saw some 102 parades. The 2006 gay parade in São Paulo drew 2.4 million. According to the Associated Press:

The 10th annual Sao Paulo Gay Pride Parade saw go-go boys and drag queens dancing on the roofs of sound trucks blasting music as they rolled down the skyscraper-lined Avenida Paulista — the financial heart of Brazil’s biggest city.

The march came two days after police said about 3 million people joined an evangelical Protestant rally on the same Sao Paulo avenue, demonstrating their growing influence in the world’s largest Roman Catholic country.

“The traditional church doesn’t want us,” said Pastor Justino Luis, 42, who started a church serving 200 mostly gay and lesbian parishioners.

Waving a banner with the words, “I’m Happy, Gay and Christian,” Luis said, “I know (God) loves me the way I am, and I know when he made me he planned for me to be the way I am.” [14]

This visibility strategy is very effective, for two days before the gay parade, evangelicals had their March for Jesus, yet the great media outlets focused their attention on the gay rally. The March for Jesus was largely ignored, except for a few gays participating and trying to show that they were also evangelical.

The political actions are very intense too. Through the assistance of gay lobby groups and leftist politicians, a Parliamentary Front for Free Sexual Expression was founded, consisting of many members of the Chamber of the Deputies. It seeks to introduce bills favoring the interests of the gay lobby.

As for the gay lobby, it seeks: 1) Implementation and monitoring of the Brazil Without Homophobia Program; 2) Decentralization of resources and actions in STD and AIDS with gays and others; 3) Approval of two federal laws by the National Congress (prohibiting discrimination due to sexual orientation and registry of civil partnerships; 4) the Brazilian Resolution in the UN’s Commission on Human Rights against discrimination due to sexual orientation; 5) the defense of a secular State that is against religious intolerance towards GLTB; 6) the National Day Against Homophobia and Gay Pride Day.

Gay and PT activist Beto de Jesus, who traveled to the U.S. some years ago to be trained by his American counterparts and who has participated in the Brazilian delegation to the UN, said: “We have a Parliamentary Front for the Free Sexual Expression comprising almost 80 representatives and senators, but we cannot pass federal laws due to the intolerance of religious representatives (Catholics and evangelicals). Our Civil Partnership Bill has been stuck in Congress since 1996, in spite of the efforts of Brazilian GLBT groups — over 200 in the country.”[15] This partnership bill was introduced by former PT Representative Marta Suplicy, considered the Queen of Gays in Brazil since the first conference of ILGA in Latin America in Rio in 1995.

Even though the National Congress has not given its approval to the same-sex civil partnership bill, gay activists are successfully conquering the sympathy of activist judges. In Rio Grande do Sul State, in South of Brazil, such judges are opening ways to gay marriage by giving to gay couples significant victories. Judge Roberto Arriada Lorea told, “In no place is it said that homosexuals are not allowed to marry and are not allowed to adopt a child.” Since 2004, register offices in Rio Grande do Sul are bound to accept the register of stable union for homosexuals, who are also entitled to adopt.[16]

Facing the tsunami

Liberal mainline denominations in Brazil have embraced a psychological, secularist stand on homosexuality. For example, the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession, a largely ethnic German denomination, officially declared on homosexuality in 2001:

There is among specialists, no absolute consensus nor in the science in regard to the nature of homosexuality, nor in the biblical interpretation of those passages referring to homosexuality. Neither there is such a consensus in the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession.[17]

The Roman Catholic Church has an official Vatican paper on homosexuality, but their progressive bishops in Brazil have a hard time divulging it publicly. Many Protestant churches have basically the same stand as the Vatican paper, but most of them do not proclaim their views publicly. In mainline liberal Protestant churches, the stand is public, but there is an effort to avoid Biblical condemnation to homosexuality. And while most of the conservative churches keep silent on the issue, Brazil has seen the growth of gay evangelical churches as the Metropolitan Community Church, a gay denomination from the U.S. Apart from the religious people, moral disapproval to homosexuality has been rare, because of the social pressures condemning prejudice and homophobia.

However, many Brazilians, especially the poor and the less intellectual, are protected from the electronic media, and they represent a serious hindrance to the establishment of amoral liberalism, where homosexuality is just an item of a larger, sinister agenda.

Among evangelicals, there are some campaigns to reach out to men and women in homosexuality. Movimento pela Sexualidade Sadia (Movement for a Healthy Sexuality), an evangelical group headed by an ex-homosexual, leads efforts to evangelize in gay parades, talking about Jesus to participants and delivering leaflets featuring the testimonials of ex-gays and lesbians.

Catholic and evangelical politicians have also been trying to counter the gay tsunami through the introduction of bills. Among them are: Bill 2279/03 (Federal) authored by Representative Elimar Damasceno that makes illegal the act of kissing between persons of the same sex in public; Bill 2177/03 (Federal) authored by Representative Neucimar Fraga that creates an aid and assistance program for sexual reorientation of persons who voluntarily opt for changing their sexual orientation from homosexuality to heterosexuality.

State representative Édino Fonseca, an Assembly of God minister, introduced a bill in the Rio de Janeiro State Legislature to establish social services to support men and women wanting to leave homosexuality. He has also introduced a bill to protect evangelical groups offering assistance to such men and women from discrimination and harassment. His former bill was defeated by the powerful gay lobby. The latter bill is facing severe opposition. It says: “No divulging of information on the possibility of support and/or the possibility of sexual reorientation of homosexuals is to be considered prejudice”.

With the kind support of Focus on the Family of Dr. James Dobson, in 2004, I was able to publish on several Brazilian websites, the document “The Gay Agenda and the Sabotage of Human Rights,” written by Dr. Yuri Mantilla and translated and adapted by me, exposing the Brazilian sexual orientation resolution in the UN. The following excerpts are from the document:

The recognition of sexual orientation as a human right will demolish the universal nature of human rights. If sexual orientation (homosexuality) is recognized as a human right, laws that protect family in every country will suffer grave assault and will be changed so that individuals practicing homosexuality will have the right to marriage, to adopt children, affirmative action and service in the military, among many other privileges. If the gay lifestyle receives protection as a human rights issue, then the universal meaning of the family will disappear. Such acceptance of homosexuality will violate the rights of family and the legal meaning of marriage of the overwhelming majority of people around the world. If human rights are recognized based on the sexual behavior of persons practicing homosexual acts, then what about the “rights” of pedophiles and other perverts? This kind of approach, extremely subjective, knocks down the universal essence of human rights. Homosexuality is not a human right, nor even a human need, but only a desire to live sexually against nature, and such desires and behaviors cannot be given protection and privileges.

The draft resolution of the Brazilian government also says: “Call upon all States to promote and protect the human rights of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation.” This action will be a serious menace to the right to religious freedom, a universally recognized fundamental human right. Christianity and other important world religions consider homosexual behavior to be a violation of God’s laws, and if the resolution is approved, it will endanger the right to religious freedom of millions of Christians around the world. They could be prosecuted merely for expressing their beliefs about homosexual conduct and for quoting texts from the Bible disapproving of same-sex acts. Even without the approval of this resolution, it is impossible to address the problem of propagation of homosexual behavior without suffering, especially from the liberal press, accusations of homophobia (a new word coined to discourage those wanting to discuss the problem seriously), intolerance and religious extremism. Yet, the promotion of homosexual behavior, especially among males, spreads atrocious diseases.[18]

The resolution also notes “the attention given to human rights violations on the grounds of sexual orientation by the special procedures in their reports to the UNCHR, as well as by the treaty monitoring bodies, and encourages all special procedures of the UNCHR, within their mandates, to give due attention to the subject…”

It is a strange paradox that a large country such as Brazil, with its huge Catholic and Evangelical populations, is spearheading the invention of special rights for individuals practicing homosexuality as a priority of its foreign policy. Even though the pro-homosexuality position of the Brazilian government could be seen by other Latin American nations as a totally novel way to address human rights issues, this position is not new. It was not born in Latin America. For several years morally decadent Western nations have, under the pressure of pro-homosexuality activists, pushed such ideas, and they have always sought to influence less developed countries. The current Brazilian government has demonstrated its willingness to follow and conform to those influences.

Canada and the European countries have been systematically advancing agendas that are contrary to the legal, historical, and moral values of Latin America. The promotion of abortion and special rights for individuals practicing homosexuality is part of these agendas. What is really surprising is the position of the Brazilian government, the main proponent of homosexual “rights” at the UN Commission on Human Rights. The Socialist government of Brazil is imitating the European pro-homosexual radicalism, and such radicalism is contrary to the laws and culture of Brazil and Latin America.[19]

In the document, I introduced all the names, addresses, email and phone contacts from the Brazilian ambassadors to the UN. This alert helped mobilize some Catholic and evangelical leaders. Later, international gay groups complained about the successful Brazilian grass-roots efforts to press the Lula administration to abandon its sexual orientation resolution in the UN.

The fight of an evangelical psychologist

Usually, medical literature in Brazil does not refer to homosexuality as an abnormal behavior, for many fear the politically correct police. Yet, a courageous evangelical psychologist Dr. Rozangela Justino, has founded Abraceh, the Association for Support to the Human Being and Family, a NGO to help men and women who want to leave homosexuality voluntarily.

For her attitude of showing compassion to homosexuals in need, Dr. Justino has been suffering threats and intimidations even from the Federal Council of Psychology in Brazil.

According to Dr. Justino, “Most of the psychoanalysts consider homosexuality to be a perversion and in a general way psychologists understand homosexuality as immaturity in the psychosexual development. The World Health Organization classifies several behaviors linked to homosexuality as disturbances and directs people to seek treatment for change. From a spiritual perspective, it is a sin. Nevertheless, the Federal Council of Psychology (FCP) issued the resolution below. Because FCP issued this resolution, pro-homosexuality activists press the Rio de Janeiro FCP chapter to punish me. I have been threatened by administrative lawsuits from the FCP chapter, but they know that the Federal Constitution and the Declaration of Human Rights favor me, for we still have scientific, expression, and religious freedom in Brazil”.

Below are excerpts from

FEDERAL COUNCIL OF PSYCHOLOGY RESOLUTION NR. 1/99

23 March 1999

“It establishes norms of conduct for psychologists in regard to the subject of Sexual Orientation.”

WHEREAS, homosexuality is not a disease, disturbance or perversion;

WHEREAS, Psychology can and should contribute through its knowledge to clarify the subjects of sexuality, helping to overcome prejudices and discriminations;

It determines:

Article 2: Psychologists should contribute, through their knowledge, to a reflection on pre-judice and to the extinction of discrimination and stigmatizations against those demonstrating homoerotic behaviors or practices.

Article 3: Psychologists shall not use any action for making homoerotic behaviors or practices pathological, nor shall they use coercion to direct homosexuals to unsolicited treatments.

Sole paragraph: Psychologists shall not collaborate with events and services proposing treatment and cures of homosexualities.

Article 4: Psychologists shall not offer their opinions, nor will they participate in public pronouncements, in the media, with a view to reinforcing existing social prejudices in regard to homosexuals as sufferers of psychic disorders.

What should Brazilian evangelicals do?

The homosexual expansion has been extraordinary in Brazil, because gay activists and their allies are completely focused on their goal. Likewise, evangelical churches should focus on their responsibility to bring homosexual men and women into a relationship with Christ.

Both Catholics and evangelicals need to be delivered from Liberation Theology and its Protestant versions, which keep them focused on many irrelevant and diverting issues. In order to face the social, political, and legal challenges from the gay activism, Christians in Brazil should have a social and political involvement free from “progressive chains”.

Even though many evangelicals disagree with the abortion and homosexual position of the Lula administration, they are urged by “progressive” propaganda to divert their attention to many other issues: health, education, and job assistance to the poor, etc. Homosexuality and abortion are just minor items on a long list of leftist interests on the agenda of evangélicos progressistas. Sadly, evangelicals in Brazil are misled into believing that Christian social action preached by the progressistas is the gospel.

Therefore, to counter these evangelical misconceptions about social action, there is a need to launch efforts to educate the evangelical public that there is real social action other than the progressive approach. Thus they would be better prepared to face adequately major challenges, such as abortion and homosexuality. Of course the other issues would also be addressed, but not from a leftist perspective.

Brazilian people will choose their new president in 2006. Again, the candidates promise social and political miracles and everything else appealing to the hearts of the voters. The great tragedy is that, according to polls, most evangelicals will vote for him who has during all of his administration promoted just the values that the Bible condemns.

Published originally, before the Brazilian presidential election, in the printed version of The Religion & Society Report.

Julio Severo is the author of the book O Movimento Homossexual (The Homosexual Movement), published by the Brazilian branch of Bethany House Publishers. In November 2004, he gave, in the Chamber of Deputies in Brasília, the introductory speech in the First Evangelical Parliamentary Front Meeting. The first magazine of the Front also published an article by Mr. Severo on homosexuality. His book has been the first writing in Portuguese to expose the homosexual movement and it has been a reference for Christian parliamentarians in Brazil.

Endnotes

1 www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u38532.shtml

2 www.lula.org.br/noticias/not_int.asp?not_cod=731&cf_cod=21&sis_cod=37

3 http://www.trekshare.com/travel/travelogue.htm?journalid=3484

4 http://gonline.uol.com.br/livre/gnews/html/gnews3316.shtml

5 http://oglobo.globo.com/online/educacao/mat/2006/03/09/192206378.asp

6 Sodomy means the homosexual perversion committed by the city of Sodom in the Bible.

7 http://gazetaweb.globo.com/gazeta/Materia.php?c=82176&e=1236

8 United message, translated by Julio Severo: Source: http://www.pt.org.br/site/noticias/noticias_int.asp?cod=43692

9 http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2005/ga10407.html

10 LifeSite Daily News, July 3, 2003. See also: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/wom1404.doc.htm

11 Requerimento de Informações nº 408, de 2003, do Dep. Elimar Máximo Damasceno, Câmara dos Deputados, Brasília.

12 Ofício nº 34, do Ministério das Relações Exteriores, Brasília, datado de 11 de julho de 2003.

13 Ofício nº 34, do Ministério das Relações Exteriores, Brasília, datado de 11 de julho de 2003.

14 http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/06/17/ brazil.gay.parade.ap/index.html

15 http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileCategory =44&FileID=153

16 http://www.gtpos.org.br/index.asp?Fuseaction=Informacoes&ParentId =329#anc340205

17 http://www.luteranos.com.br/posicionamentos/homossexualismo.htm

18 The Religion & Society Report, November 2003, p. 6.

19 Translated from the Portuguese version, where there are many textual contributions by this author.

Published originally in The Religion & Society Report: http://www.profam.org/pub/rs/rs.2305.htm#fn19

Lula again: high in populism and scandals

Julio Severo

In Brazil, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, who has been President since 2002, has won his presidential re-election on the October 29 polls. He will govern Brazil for four more years.

Lula is one of the founders of the Workers’ Party (PT), a populist Socialist party. One of the first measures of his past administration was to support Hugo Chavez in his political crisis in Venezuela. By the “Foro de São Paulo” pact, leftist leaders and groups have a commitment to protect one another. Lula and Fidel Castro founded “Foro de São Paulo” in 1990 to unify leftists in their mission to spread and strengthen their ideology throughout Latin America.

The past 4 years of the Lula administration have been plagued by successive scandals, involving his staff and government officials, many of whom fell for financial, administrative and personal corruption and other serious crimes. Yet, even though PT has been the main goal of the accusations, Lula himself seems fully armored and has been made in the press reports strangely detached from the immoral conduct of his own staff and party. Such press condescendence should not be surprising, for in Brazil television and other media outlets are eligible for government grants. Lula has repeatedly told reporters and the public that he did not know anything about corruption in his administration. Attempts to impeach him failed.

His popularity remained solid before the October elections. A strong message defending the poor and a government program giving basic food to them have rendered him sympathy from the poor and those who care for them. Such message drew many evangelical followers too. In fact, many denominations approached Lula since the 2002 presidential campaign when PT brought to Brazil one of its old friends — Rev. Jesse Jackson — to assure evangelical leaders from different churches (traditional, charismatic, Pentecostal) that Lula and his party were not a Communist threat. Liberal churches had no need for such encouragement.

With Jackson, Lula himself assured them that he would not let his future administration to get involved in promoting abortion and the homosexual agenda. Yet, the past 4 years saw the launching of Brazil Without Homophobia, a comprehensive official government program to defend and protect homosexuality and fight homophobia, and the Brazilian introduction in the United Nations of a pioneering resolution classifying homosexuality as a human right. Besides, the official PT government program contains reference to abortion decriminalization.

Jackson is not the only responsible for the political “marriage” of evangelicals to Lula. Rev. Caio Fábio and Bishop Carlos Rodrigues, one of the founders of the Kingdom of God Universal Church, were instrumental in the past effort — prior to 2002 — to convince the evangelical population that they should not fear and shun Lula and his Socialism. Today, both have fallen. Rev. Fábio, a Presbyterian, got involved in a series of scandals, including adultery and divorce. Bishop Rodrigues has fallen because of his involvement in political mafias benefiting PT, his denomination and himself. Yet, his church remains politically and financially powerful. It owns the Liberal Party, which has been an ally to PT (Lula’s party) in the Brazilian government since 2003. Brazilian vice-president is a Liberal Party member too.

In 2006, the majority of the most politically vocal evangelical leaders supported the Lula re-election. Rev. Ariovaldo Ramos, former president of the Association of Evangelicals of Brazil (founded by Caio Fábio) and current president of the Brazilian branch of World Vision, told before the October polls: “I support the Lula re-election. I see that his administration introduced social advances that should at least be kept”.

Like Jackson, Ramos is a known Black activist. In 2004, Rev. Ramos took part in a Brazilian entourage that traveled to Venezuela to deliver a leftist manifesto in support of Hugo Chavez.

In situations where there is no favoritism for him, Lula bestows privileges on strong electoral groups. One of the largest Assemblies of God denominations in Brazil decided to side with Lula after their president, Bishop Manoel Ferreira, was promised a government office on September 2006.

In the first Lula administration, Pastor Nilson Fanini, former president of the World Baptist Alliance, had also been granted a similar office. He eventually got involved in serious financial scandals, which left him stranded from the large church he had served for decades.

The Reborn in Christ Apostolic Church, which had also embarked on the Lula campaign since 2002, has been sinking in a scandal quagmire, after its president, Apostle Estevam Hernandes, and some bishops were summoned by the courts for obscure financial transactions. Their estates and banking accounts have been blocked by judicial order. The Foursquare Gospel Church in Brazil is facing similar problems. The president and other leading officials in this church have been summoned by the courts because of illegal moneymaking through their past public offices. While the message and measures to help the poor have been a very successful tool in the hands of political (and even evangelical) opportunists in Brazil, the scandals in the Lula administration and his (evangelical or not) allies are soaring higher than the populism of Lula.

Evangelical leaders allied to Lula have wasted their opportunities to offer spiritual hope to a man in desperate need. Some time ago, he took part in a witchcraft ritual in Africa. Recently, he vented a strange declaration that “the demon that lives in him is not to be awakened, for his wish is to close the Brazilian Congress”.

It is notorious, at least in Brazil, that to get many bills and measures approved, his administration had to buy many parliamentarians. This scandal has been known as Mensalão (big monthly pay-off). His effort to buy the electoral support from the poor through basic assistance and food is called Mensalinho (small monthly pay-off). In fact, the population that benefited has voted overwhelmingly for Lula and his political allies, even those involved in heavy scandals. In spite of his “assistance” to the poor, Brazil has consistently dropped 11 positions on the WEF Growth Competitiveness Index ranking from 2003 to 2005.

Because political, administrative and criminal scandals have been besetting the Lula administration, there is a terrible paradoxical apathy plaguing the feelings of the Brazilian population regarding politicians. Because of the crimes of some, virtually all politicians are perceived as corrupt. So it seems that Brazilian electors did lose their ability to care whether their chosen candidate is ethically reliable or not. They eventually vote for the same individuals that are responsible for the political discontentment of the Brazilian population. Thus, in spite of the many scandals involving many members of the Lula party, nearly all of them were reelected on the October polls. Yet, this apathy has produced strange results among evangelical electors: because of some scandals among some evangelical parliamentarians, most of the Evangelical Parliamentarian Front members did not get reelected. From its 61 members, just 15 were reelected. Even its president, Adelor Vieira, was not re-elected as a congressman. This is an astounding victory for Lula, because his administration had been complaining that religious opposition was hindering its abortion and homosexual bills. Apparently, the next Brazilian administration will have no such hindrance.

In addition, the crisis in the Evangelical Parliamentarian Front (EPF) will be a great advantage for the new PT administration because Adelor Vieira was not re-elected. The new person expected to occupy his place in the EPF presidency is Walter Pinheiro, a Baptist from the PT party, or Bishop Robson Rodovalho, an open Lula-supporter since 2002.

For his new administration, Lula will need other means to get his bills approved in the Congress.

Like his Venezuelan friend, Lula had recently made known that, if re-elected, his intention is to modify the Brazilian constitution. Now that he is president again, it remains to be seen what he will actually do to the Constitution and Brazil.

The Brazilian horizon may be threatening storms ahead. Just less than one day before the October 1 elections, Brazil experienced its worst air traffic disaster, which cost more than 150 fatal victims. For lack of proper warnings, a Boeing crashed.

Such an accident may be a terrible alert. Brasilia needs much more than good political pilots. It needs proper warnings for it not to crash. Yet, for a long time Brazil has lacked good political pilots in its presidency. It remains to be seen what the coming days have in store for Brazil.

Source: Last Days Watchman

My essay in The Religion & Society Report

I am glad to let you know that The Religion & Society Report issue containing my 12-page essay "Behind the Homosexual Tsunami in Brazil" is being printed and it will be mailed out to its subscribers.

This article, written by me totally in English, speaks of the Brazilian President Lula and his Socialist administration promoting the gay agenda in the whole Brazilian society and even the whole world.

I encourage you to get a copy and read my essay.

The Religion & Society Report is published by The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, 934 North Main Street, Rockford, IL 61103-7061 USA Phone: (815) 964-5819. Its editor is Dr. Harold Brown.

The gay use and abuse of the word prejudice

Julio Severo

Gay militants demand special laws. According to their view, those laws are necessary “to protect them” from violence. The great problem is, “What is the ‘test’ that they will use to define and interpret what is violence?” Of course whichever the definition may be, the cases of boys raped by gays are never mentioned, even though they are one of the worst crimes and homosexuality is its main abuse factor.

By the experience of countries that allowed laws against homophobia, we know that interpretations of violence against people involved in homosexuality put in the category of “homophobia crime” even sermons against the homosexual sin. If approved a law against homophobia, there would be persecution and injustice against those not accepting homosexuality. If discrimination is to be against homosexuality, then the Bible and its Author may be placed in that category by a society that worries more about protecting sin than protecting the well-being of its population. Sadly, even some evangelicals are unable to realize what a law against “discrimination” may bring as consequence.

Some time ago, a Brazilian evangelical magazine published an excellent article on the homosexual movement. Yet, it made a comment without considering properly its implications. The magazine commented:

Some demands are more than fair, such as to punish more rigidly absurdities as beatings and even murders of homosexuals, and to curb embarrassments in public places and work places.

Everyone is equal before law — except for homosexuals, that deserve more?

There are several snares involved in the acceptance of those demands. Current laws treat fairly all cases of citizens’ beatings and murders, homosexual or not. There are not episodes where the law allows an aggressor or murderer to go unpunished only because the attacked or murdered individual practiced homosexuality. A judge or court doesn’t have authority to interpret the law that way, for no law leaves unpunished a murderer or aggressor just because the victim practiced homosexual perversion. Such situation is unreal in Brazil. Even if somebody has killed a pedophile, the law it doesn’t exempt him of murder blame.

The law fulfills its role justly to all the citizens, whether homosexual or not. If there are cases of impunity, it is not because the law fails to protect exclusively men involved in homosexuality. It is a well-known fact that there is a lot of impunity in Brazil, but that impunity doesn’t involve only those in homosexuality. There is impunity in all the situations, whether homosexual or not. But when it properly is fulfilled, law does what should do.

Some youths in the São Paulo city, Brazil, killed a homosexual adult male some years ago. They were arrested and condemned, as it would usually happen if they had killed any other citizen. How to punish them more rigidly? Is to kill a homosexual a greater crime than killing an ordinary citizen? Is to murder a gay a greater crime than taking a child’s life? With dozens of thousands of murders happening every year in Brazil, should a dozen of murdered gays be turned into propaganda for the homosexual movement?

What the Brazilian government should do is to correct its proverbial incompetence and to eliminate the death penalty that murderers apply on the whole POPULATION. Why to select individuals involved in homosexuality as special “victims” when overwhelmingly the most of the population, forced to live in a violent social context because of the negligent security politics of the State, does suffer incomparably more and has not a dozen, but dozens of thousands of victims a year, not mentioning a great number of children raped and killed?

An exclusive law to address cases of beatings and murder of homosexuals could not do more than the law has already been doing. Then, what would the objective of such a law be? Probably, just to prevent everything that is interpreted as “violence”, “discrimination” and contrariety to homosexuality. How to prevent specifically? Identifying the sources of the so-called “homophobia” and of any aversion to the homosexual acts. It is exactly in this point that the glances and the ideological machine guns would turn their attention to Christians that mention Bible passages condemning homosexuality. Would the law have interest in doing the distinction that biblical opposition to homosexuality is not the same like hate and violence against individuals in homosexuality? For those struggling to introduce gay bills, all opposition to homosexualism leads to discrimination and aggression against homosexuals.

More than fair demands?

Then are we supposed to pass laws against homophobia, laws protecting homosexuals from being “embarrassed” in public places? Let us think seriously about the implications of such measure. Homosexuals free to kiss each other and make obscene gestures in public places, before children, under the total protection of the law? Why to grant them such freedom and privilege?

Should we pass laws against homophobia, laws protecting homosexuals from being “embarrassed” in the workplaces? Let us think seriously about the implications of such measure. What if an evangelical or Catholic school discovers that one of its teachers or another employee is addicted to homosexual practices? What would happen then? In our simplicity, we may think the children’s protection is priority, above the interests of the gay groups, but it is not on the base of simplicity, innocence and fairness that many lawyers and judges today act. In that case, a law against homophobia would be interpreted entirely “to protect” individuals in homosexuality against “prejudice” and to hinder the school from protecting the children!

If everyone is convinced that those laws are more than fair demands, what will happen to Christians if those laws turn into reality? Laws allegedly made up to combat “homophobia” always eventually privilege and protect the homosexual sin and they always eventually endanger those who do not accept that sin, including Christians.

One of the aims of the homosexual movement is actually to lead the whole society to see their demands as human rights issues. However, if we consider closely, we will see that their demands are not more than fair, but more than cunning. We may, by God’s grace, understand well those and other issues “for we are not ignorant of his devices”. (2 Corinthians 2:11 NKJV)

Distorting the reality

In the voting of homosexual issues in the National Congress in Brasília, speeches equaling opposition to homosexuality as violence is so repetitive and insistent that Christian politicians feel often intimidated, threatened, constrained and forced into a defensive position and into explaining that their stand has no connection with violence, while gay militants never need to suffer the inconvenience and legitimate embarrassment of being charged for the natural connection that exists between homosexuality and sex with boys.

The homosexual movement learned how to corner the opposition, without accepting any charge and accusation. Such attitude reminds greatly PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores — the Workers’ Party, of President Lula) that, when it was in the opposition, it wanted parliamentary investigation for everything and for everybody without fear of confronting nobody, but when it began to govern Brazil with Lula as president it fought with all its strength to suffocate that investigative procedure, even in the most severe cases of corruption involving individuals of its protected government. Coincidentally, the great majority of bills favoring homosexuality and abortion are from politicians of that Socialist party.

In fact, the Lula administration has been trying to promote homosexuality at international level, introducing in the United Nations a pioneering resolution defending sexual orientation as an inalienable human right. If the Brazilian government’s concern with cases of torture, violence and even murder at international level were really legitimate, Lula and his companions would remember Christians.

No human group today has so many victims of murders and tortures as Christians. Every Muslim and communist country is theater of unimaginable cruelties against Christians. More than 150,000 Christians are martyred each year [1]. They are real victims, suffering real (not imaginary) oppressions. They are the victims that usually do not appear in the news. If their suffering were limited just to affront and insults to their Christian lifestyle, they would be able to tolerate it and stay happy. Prejudice and discrimination are comparatively the least preoccupying problems they suffer. The real problem is the systematic torture, not mentioning incredibly high numbers of brutal murders.

However, the Lula administration understands persecution in another way. When two gays kiss one other scandalously in public, offending people and attacking the close children’s innocence, some might have the courage of complaining against the public indecent gay acts. That attitude of not accepting the public gay immorality is, for the Lula administration and for the gay activists, homophobia, prejudice and persecution.

With the help of morally bankrupt governments, that flatter the homosexual movement and treat the faithful Christians as third-class citizens, the arrogant Brazilian gay activists demand rights and special privileges for alleged social persecution. What they call “brutal” persecution, even comparing it to the Nazi persecution of the Jews, it is nothing else than largely cases interpreted as insults and affronts, as in the cases in which they feel offended when the public does not accept their public kisses and other obscene gestures. Of course they also take much advantage of the dozen of murders of homosexuals a year within the violent Brazilian society where all, homosexual or not, run serious and constant risk of being murdered. While they shout and provoke the largest confusion because of minimum issues in order to achieve privileges and maximum rights above the rights that the ordinary citizens enjoy, Christians in hostile countries don’t want anything special — only the right of existing.

Lula has friendship with dictators of communist and Muslim countries, but he doesn’t open his mouth on behalf of the Christians persecuted in those places. His government prefers to open its mouth on behalf of his communist and Muslim friends. His government prefers to open its mouth to defend gays kissing one another in public.

The Lula administration has no desire to protect and guarantee the right of former homosexual Christians to give public testimony about their past-depraved life. Thus, what homosexuals do in public deserves attention and respect, but the public Christian testimony on homosexuality does not.

Promoting unjust prejudice and discrimination politics

The whole society should then ask: Why is the Lula administration privileging individuals involved in homosexual acts? Why does the Lula administration want laws to give special protection to certain categories of individuals, especially on the base of their option for the homosexual lifestyle? Doesn’t the Constitution of Brazil itself establish that all are equal before the law? If a human being is attacked (whether Black, homosexual or even a disgusting neo-Nazi), the law punishes the aggressor. But an antidiscrimination law, for instance, comes to guarantee that some people are more important than everybody else is. That kind of law foments the true racism, prejudice and a great deal of planned and deliberate inequality, putting the race or behavior of certain people as more deserving of state privileges.

It is not incidental that gay activists have been also engaged in the fight of the Black movement. However, the fight to defend and impose the Afro-Brazilian culture (term that often is a camouflage for several Afro-Brazilian occultist practices) may bring unexpected collateral effects. That “culture”, with everything that it represents spiritually, should not be imposed on the citizens or on schoolchildren, because it attacks frontally the spirituality of the most Christians. In the name of an alleged fight against prejudice, the black and homosexual issues are used for the establishment of a minority dictatorship against the majority, when actually the laws have already been protecting very well individual rights. So antidiscrimination laws are unnecessary and dangerous — in fact, they are abuse tools to promote the political interests of the State and of groups alleging to defend minorities.

Laws against the discrimination are a politically correct fad (imported directly from the liberal cultural imperialism of the US) whose noxious effects will be felt in a fulminating way in the close future, where, among another measures, any expression or comment contrary to homosexuality and the practices of African witchcraft will simply be treated as crime, exposing many evangelicals to the threat of lawsuits, sufferings, state persecution and even prison. Besides, that kind of law would promote two “cultures” that embrace each other, for it is known that the African religions and their spiritual entities welcome the homosexual practices.

It is not then mere coincidence that a great defender of the black “culture” is Mr. Luiz Mott, considered the leader of the homosexual movement in Brazil. He has written books on that subject. Evidently, he supports the African religions and the demands of the black groups for special rights, knowing that in the trail of that fight homosexuality and its adherents will be benefited.

Curbing the Christian testimony in the society

Because of that fight, the black “culture” has now special privileges even against evangelicals. TV shows that present people’s testimony that formerly practiced Afro-Brazilian religions and today live in the Gospel have been targeted for prejudice from the State and black groups. That is the only kind of prejudice that the State officially authorizes and supports.

Those public testimonies, although under harassment by the antidiscrimination shock troops, are a part of Christianity from its early times, as the Bible itself proves: “And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed”. (Acts 19:18-20 NKJV)

We need then to question whether the State is entitled to suffocate those public testimonies in the name of a cultural plurality or diversity. If we do not make such questioning now, later the State will think it is also entitled to suffocate the testimony of people who were delivered from homosexuality, so that the mere attitude of telling that there is, in Jesus Christ, hope and escape for those who want to leave homosexuality may eventually to be treated as disrespect and discrimination against a sexual behavior that is now accepted, protected and respected by the new social mores.

Therefore, while there is time, Christians need to fight for the right to preach the Gospel and give assistance to men and women who want to leave the oppression of the homosexual lifestyle, before the merciless Gay Inquisition, in the name of the fight against prejudice and with total state complicity, achieves exclusive rights to commit every kind of intolerance against the testimony and the assistance of Christians in the society.

Julio Severo is author of the book O Movimento Homossexual (The Homosexual Movement), published by the Brazilian branch of the Bethany House Publishers.

Julio Severo English blog: Last Days Watchman

His Portuguese blog:

www.juliosevero.com.br

www.juliosevero.com

Notes:

[1] http://www.religiousfreedom.com/Conference/Germany/sigmon.htm