File this under, “Huh?”
Brazil’s House of Representatives has elected a renowned racist and homophobic deputy and evangelical pastor, Marco Feliciano, to chair the house Committee on Human Rights and Minorities (CDHM) today.
The election should have taken place yesterday (6 March), but the session was adjourned due to uproar caused by Feliciano’s nomination.
Feliciano was nominated and elected by his extreme right-wing Social Christian Party (PSC), with 11 of the 12 votes of the members of the CDHM.
Again. Huh?
Feliciano will now control the committee which is responsible for defending human rights and the rights of minorities in Brazil.
Feliciano has previously made consistent anti-gay remarks, saying being gay is ‘hateful’, ‘sick’ and against the rule of God, adding that ‘salvation is available to them’ in the form of a gay ‘cure’.
He is also on the record saying that ‘AIDS is a a gay cancer’, and called LGBT advocates a ‘gay dictatorship’.
Feliciano previously made racist statements, saying: ‘Africans descend from an ancestor cursed by Noah’, adding that’s why it suffers from ‘hunger, diseases, ethnic wars’.
About the time I think the world is becoming a bit saner, something like this pops up on my news feed.
PSC, Feliciano’s party, is an extreme right wing party that advocates ‘gay cure’ therapy and opposes equality and anti-discrimination laws.
CDHM is the key institution to passing equality bills and anti-discrimination legislation.
It is also responsible for liasing with human rights groups both local and internaitonal.
