Gays finally got one over on blacks. Actually, they got one over on all Not-Gays.
While it’s not illegal to be a racist, it is illegal to be homophobic. At least in Brazil.
As BBC reports:
Six out of 11 judges voted to consider discrimination against gays and transgender people equivalent to racism.
The decision will give the community, which suffers constant attacks, real protection, activists say.
At least 141 LGBT people have been killed in Brazil this year, according to rights group Grupo Gay da Bahia.
The Catholic Church and the evangelical movement are frequently critical of gay rights and far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, elected last year with strong support of conservative voters, is a self-described homophobe.
“Homophobic crimes are as alarming as physical violence,” Supreme Court Vice-President Luiz Fux said on his vote, citing “epidemic levels of homophobic violence”.
For almost 20 years there have been efforts to make homophobia a crime in Brazil, but legislation on the matter has faced resistance among conservative and religious groups in Congress, the BBC’s Julia Carneiro in Rio reports.
The decision at the Supreme Court means that offences are to be punished under the country’s racism law until Congress approves specific legislation to protect LGBT people, our correspondent adds.
Before you jump on the part of the article that described Brazil’s “racism law”, understand what that law is about.
As CNN reports, the law has nothing to do with crimes, but against perceived economic inequities:
Brazilians of African descent earn 58 cents for every $1 a white Brazilian makes, according to the government’s National Household Survey. This in a country where one of every four Brazilians lives below the poverty level.
“The poor generally have darker skin,” Sotero said.
But that’s not because blacks are considered inherently inferior, but because they haven’t had the opportunities, analysts say.
“The country really favors a meritocracy,” said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a liberal Washington think tank.
“If you had the talent and you had the education, you could succeed,” Birns said. “It just so happened that most of the time the whites had the education.”
One word to note about Sotero’s comment is “generally”. The poor GENERALLY has darker skin.
Back to Gays.
Now a country officially recognizes how one has sex as a distinction for crime. But crime is crime. It doesn’t matter whether it’s committed against gays or the Not-Gays. Yet, that’s not enough. Brazil’s Leftism shows clearly, as they put one type of sexual activity over others.
I suggest to the Brazilian Not-Gay community to just claim to be gay. If everybody is gay, then this forces the LGBTQ to find a new letter.
