In the past, Jair Bolsonaro has said he’d rather have a dead son than a gay one.
Last year, Brazil elected the openly homophobic Jair Bolsonaro as its president. And on his first day in office, he removed LGBTQ concerns from the responsibilities of the human rights industry as he felt that “gender-based ideology” was a threat to Brazil’s Christian values.
The Guardian has obtained an interview that the president recently gave to Exame magazine, where he said: “If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life.
“But we can’t let this place become known as a gay tourism paradise. Brazil can’t be a country of the gay world, of gay tourism. We have families.”
Bolsonaro’s latest comments were quickly condemned. David Miranda, one of the few openly LGBTQ politicians in Brazil, said: “This is not a head of state – this is a national disgrace.”
He added: “He is staining the image of our country in every imaginable way.”
Lawyer and activist Renan Quilalha said: “It is a disastrous declaration, both from the human rights point of view and with regards to Brazil’s international image.
“All this demonstrates is … something that he has made consistently clear over nearly 30 years of public life: that he is a homophobe.”
Both of them shared concerns that Bolsonaro’s latest comments effectively gave a “green light” to violence against the LGBTQ community, with Miranda adding that it put “a target on their backs” as well as risking the sexual exploitation of women in Brazil.
In a video posted on Twitter, Jean Wyllys, a gay former politician in Brazil who had to flee because of death threats, said: “With this unhappy declaration and this unhappy gesture against the LGBT community, Bolsonaro is simply being Bolsonaro.”
During a “Women Against Bolsonaro march” held in Sao Paulo following his election, protest organiser Luka Franca said: “Bolsonaro has opened a Pandora’s box. He’s given a voice to an ultra right population who want to voice their prejudice and annihilate anyone who is different.”
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