Brazil's Plummeting Birth Rate Linked to Influence of Soap Operas

Brazilian Globo TV network partners with population control groups to promote contraceptive ideology

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

BRASILIA, July 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Brazil's plummeting birth rate, which has fallen from 6.3 children per woman in 1960 to 2.3 in 2000 and 1.8 in 2006, is being attributed to the influence of pro-contraceptive propaganda delivered to the public through soap operas.

At least two studies published in April of this year have concluded that the influence of soap operas created by the popular Brazilian network Globo explain the precipitous fertility decline.

A study by the Inter-American Development Bank, "Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil", states that "women living in areas covered by the Globo signal have significantly lower fertility."

"The only other developing country comparable in size to have experienced such a sharp and generalized decline is China, where the decline was the result of deliberate government policy", states the group.

A similar study by the Centre for Economic Policy Research in Britain states that "using Census data for the period 1970-1991, we find that women living in areas covered by the Globo signal have significantly lower fertility. The effect is strongest for women of lower socioeconomic status and for women in the central and late phases of their fertility cycle, consistent with stopping behavior."

The recent data, which has surprised experts, indicates that fertility in Brazil is well below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. As a result, the population is expected to age rapidly, requiring a smaller working age population to care for a growing population of retired people, as the majority of European countries are experiencing.

"More than a simple revision of the statistical calculation, the verification that Brazil will have increasingly more elderly people and fewer children sooner than was foreseen will have an impact on calculations of retirement, and will bring difficulties for public policy, which must adapt themselves to aging population structure," writes the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.

The relationship between exposure to Globo soap operas and fertility decline is no coincidence. According to the abortionist population control organization, Population Media Center (PMC), the Brazilian television network Globo has long had an agreement to allow the group to insert its contraceptive ideology into its soap opera programming.

"Due to the popularity of TV Globo's commercially-sponsored serialized dramas, PMC, along with Brazilian NGO Comunicarte, have an agreement with TV Globo that assists the writers of the prime-time telenovelas to weave suggested social issues into the lives of key characters," the organization states on its website.

"TV Globo inserts messages related to reproductive health and other issues in its most popular programs at no cost to Comunicarte/PMC. The air time TV Globo has donated to issues of social concern would have costs tens of millions of dollars within the last year alone. In return, PMC provides pro bono research to the writers regarding the themes they choose to incorporate into the programs."

The PMC is involved with soap opera programming in nations across the globe. It has offices in Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Niger, Nigeria, the Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Senegal, and Sudan.

The organization uses what it calls the "Sabido Method" to promote its ideology. It creates characters who embrace pro-family values, who then slowly change to the anti-family position over time as a result of experiences that occur during the course of the show's run. Audience members who may share the views of the characters at the beginning are influenced to change as well.

Brazilian pro-family activist Julio Severo, who has long decried the influence of soap operas in his country, is concerned that the plummeting birth rate will have seriously detrimental consequences in the coming decades.

"As you know, birth rates in Europe are falling, and they are facing a shortage of young workers," he told LifeSiteNews.

"But the birth rates in Brazil are falling very fast! Brazil may face mounting problems with a very large old population. In fact, I think that Brazil will suffer a worse crisis than Europe in the coming years."

Related Links:

Population Media Center
http://www.populationmedia.org

Ms. Magazine Article on Population Media Center's Work
http://www.populationmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/ms...

Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil
http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=15199...

Source: LifeSiteNews

Divulgation: http://www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

The World Watches as Brazil Advances Toward a Homosexual Dictatorship

Written by Luiz Sérgio Solimeo

A bill, already approved in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies and currently being debated in the Senate, demonstrates the type of dictatorship the homosexual movement would like to impose on the Christian world. If this bill were to become law it would punish with imprisonment, anyone who criticizes homosexual ideology or practice. This would empower the homosexual movement worldwide, thus reinforcing their plans here in America.

Similarly, it uncovers the true goals of the homosexual movement, and, is thus of pivotal importance to freedom-loving people aroung the globe.

Religious Persecution

Bishop Redovino Rizzardo, of Dourados, State of Mato Grosso do Sul, warned about the bill:

“The Federal Senate is evaluating Projected Bill 122/2006, intended to protect those who choose to adopt homosexual attitudes and practices. .... If approved, the bill would hinder the Catholic Church, which strives to follow the Gospel. Thus, a priest who condemns homosexuality in his homily may be judged for ‘causing moral, ethical, philosophical or psychological embarrassment.’ A decision by a seminary rector to refuse admittance to a homosexual student could bring him three to four years in jail.”[1]

Homosexuality: Not a Source of Rights

Fr. Luiz Carlos Lodi da Cruz, a distinguished opponent of abortion and homosexuality, published an article against the bill. In it, he shows how the bill fits into the process of systematic anti-life and anti-family offensives by the socialist President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva’s government, in direct conflict with the fundamental principles of Catholic morality.

In his article, titled “The Lula Government and the Combat against Chastity,” Fr. Lodi da Cruz makes a connection between the pro-abortion and homosexual movements:

“In the Lula government, the pro-abortion cause, that attacks human life, walks hand-in-hand with the pro-homosexual cause, that attacks the virtue of chastity on which the family is built. Since the beginning of 2003, the government has been actively pursuing an agenda, both domestically and with the international community (UN and OAS), to glorify homosexuality and treat those who oppose homosexual conduct as (homophobic) criminals.”[2]

After presenting a chronological list of all the pro-homosexual measures the Lula government has taken, Fr. Lodi da Cruz analyzes the bill that would make homosexuality a source of privilege:

“What does it mean? It means that in addition to the basic rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution to all people, those who practice homosexuality will also have rights by virtue of the homosexuality they practice. The bill grants rights to homosexuals, not in their capacity as persons but in their capacity as homosexuals. Now then, homosexuality (understood as the practice of carnal intercourse between persons of the same sex) is a vice against nature that cannot grant any rights whatsoever to anyone.”[3]

Vice is Transformed into a Source of Merit

Similarly, attorney Maria das Dores Dolly Guimarães, president of the Sao Paulo Federation of Movements to Defend Life, comments that, according to the bill, “homosexuality would cease being a vice and become a source of merit. Likewise, anyone daring to criticize homosexual conduct would be criminalized.”[4]

Further on, she emphasizes: “Christians will be the first ones to suffer persecution.”

She exemplifies this with some of the bill’s provisions:

“The proposed legislation intends to punish with 2 to 5 years inprisonment, anyone who dares prohibit or prevent the public practice of an obscene act (‘manifestation of affection’) by homosexuals (art. n.º 7).” The same punishment would befall a housewife who fires her children’s babysitter upon finding out she is a lesbian (art. n.º 4).

“A priest who condemns homosexuality in his sermon could be prosecuted as per article n.º 8: ‘causing ... ethical, philosophical or psychological embarrassment,’” and “the rector of a seminary who rejects a homosexual student could be condemned with 3 to 5 years in jail (art. n.º 5).”[5]

“The Gay Gag Law”

This proposed bill has become known in Brazil as the “Gay Gag Law” since, if approved, it would make any condemnation or criticism of homosexual practice illegal.

That is precisely the title of a study by lawyer Paulo Medeiros Krause: “The Gay Gag Law, Gay Super-rights, Unconstitutionality and Totalitarianism,”[6] in which he states:

“The projected bill is flagrantly unconstitutional and beckons the implantation of totalitarianism and State ideological terrorism, in blatant violation of the rights of equality, free expression of one’s thought, inviolability of freedom of conscience and belief, non-discrimination for reasons of religious, philosophical or political beliefs, and a violation of due process, material or substantive (art. 5.º, caput, IV, VI, VIII, LIV, of the [Brazilian] Constitution).”[7]

In another article on the same topic, Dr. Krause shows the ideological Marxism underlying the projected bill:

“What is really behind the projected bill is an attempt to impose as dogma, the morality and naturalness of homosexuality. This dogma is not scientific, but has a Marxist ideological origin. Denying this supposed truth would become punishable by penal law. Nothing could be more aggressive or inadmissible. It is policing ideology. … Obviously, law could never oblige anyone to accept papal infallibility, and yet, this law would impose the dogma of the infallibility of [the Marxist thinkers] Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse on all Brazilians.” [8]

Homosexuality is not a “Gender” but a Behavior

Prof. Uziel Santana, of the Federal University of Sergipe, explains in a simple and categorical fashion why the “Gay Gag Law” is unconstitutional:

“Why is Projected Bill 122/2006 unconstitutional? It is unconstitutional because art. 5º of the Federal Constitution establishes, as a first and fundamental right and guarantee, that “men” and “women” have equal rights and obligations. Thus, the Constitution does not recognize a third gender: the homosexual one. So, how can an ordinary bill attempt to establish super-rights for and the impossibility of criticizing those who, as homosexuals, are not even recognized by the Constitution? Whether they like it or not, they are only men or women to our Magna Charta.”[9]

Implantation of a Police State

It is fitting to finish this analysis on the danger of Brazil becoming the world’s first Homosexual Dictatorship with a comment by the above-quoted Bishop of Dourados, Most Rev. Redovino Rizzato. One can only imagine the respurcussions this would have in the rest of the world:

“From every indication, when the bill is voted into law, in addition to all the basic rights the Federal Constitution guarantees to all Brazilian citizens, homosexuals will have privileges and advantages derived from their sexual choice. In contrast, all those who do not agree with homosexual behavior will either have to keep quiet or to get ready to occupy a cell in one of the country’s prisons.”[10]

Footnotes:

1 Most. Rev. Redovino Rizzardo, “Quem são os discriminados?” Diário M.S., July 3, 2008 at http://www.diarioms.com.br/leitura.php?can_id=15&id=77078#. (Our translation)

2 Fr. Luiz Carlos Lodi da Cruz, “O governo Lula e o combate à castidade” at http://www.providaanapolis.org.br/govlucas.htm. (Our translation)

2 Ibid.

3 http://dihitt.com.br/noticia/lei-da-homofobia-no-senado-para-aprovacao-polemica/quem_votou?r=. (Our translation.

4 Ibid.

5 Paulo Medeiros Krause, “A lei da mordaça gay, os superdireitos gays, inconstitucionalidade e totalitarismo” at http://www.cleofas.com.br/virtual/texto.php?doc=OPINIAO&id=opi0272. (Our translation)

6 Ibid.

7 Paul Medeiros Krause, “A inconstitucionalidade do projeto de lei da homofobia (PLC nº 122/2006) e o estado totalitário marxista,” at http://jus2.uol.com.br/doutrina/texto.asp?id=10468. (Our translation)

8 Uziel Santana, “Projeto de Lei 122/2006: inconstitucional, ilegítimo e heterofóbico,” at http://www.scribd.com/doc/210778/Projeto-1222006-Inconstitucional-Ilegitimo-e-Heterofobico-Parte-4?autodown=doc. (Our translation)

9 Most Rev. Redovino Rizzardo, ibid.

Source: www.tfp.org

Divulgation: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

Persecution over homosexuality looms for Brazilian Christians

D. L. Foster

The world’s system is moving quickly to protect and sanctify with legal measures the abomination that parodies the nature of God.

Via Last Days Watchman, we learn a new proposal in Brazil could punish pastors who preach against homosexuality with up to five years in prison. The bill is sweeping in its scope against anyone in the public or private sector who opposes homosexuality.

Under the guise of stopping discrimination, the measure also specifies that if anyone attempts to prevent acts of “homosexual affection” in public, they could also be subject to the penalty.

In June the President of Brazil convened a government sanctioned conference for homosexuals and decreed that opposition to their rights are ” perhaps the most perverse disease impregnated in the human mind.” President Lula vowed to rid Brazil of “homophobia”.

How long before we see such measures pick up mainstream support in America? If you are a pastor will you capitulate to what the legal system deems right or will you cry out against wickedness and risk imprisonment?

Some Christians believe that once a law is passed we are bound to obey it against the will of God and our holy faith. But is that the witness of the saints before us?

In Daniel chapter six, a law simular to the one being proposed in Brazil was passed. But take note of Daniel’s response to the law.

Then these men said to themselves, “We shall find no grounds for accusation against this Daniel unless by way of the law of his God.” So these supervisors and satraps went thronging to the king and said to him, “King Darius, live forever! All the supervisors of the kingdom, the prefects, satraps, nobles, and governors are agreed that the following prohibition ought to be put in force by royal decree: no one is to address any petition to god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king; otherwise he shall be cast into a den of lions. Now, O king, issue the prohibition over your signature, immutable and irrevocable under Mede and Persian law.” So King Darius signed the prohibition and made it law. Even after Daniel heard that this law had been signed, he continued his custom of going home to kneel in prayer and give thanks to his God in the upper chamber three times a day, with the windows open toward Jerusalem. So these men rushed in and found Daniel praying and pleading before his God. Then they went to remind the king about the prohibition: “Did you not decree, O king, that no one is to address a petition to god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king; otherwise he shall be cast into a den of lions?” The king answered them, “The decree is absolute, irrevocable under the Mede and Persian law.” To this they replied, “Daniel, the Jewish exile, has paid no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you issued; three times a day he offers his prayer.” Daniel 6:6-13 NAB

Not only he refuse to discontinue doing what the law specifically forbade under penalty of death, he did not alter in any way what he did doing prayer which was to open his windows. Yes, he was convicted and sentenced to death, but it set the stage for one of the greatest acts of divine intervention recorded in scripture.

Source: Gay Christian Movement Watch

Divulgation: http://www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com