I have just received an email from a friend, which took me to a website for “Equality Moms”, to challenge hate and discrimination in Brazil.
“I’d rather have a dead son than a gay son.” These words, recently spoken by a prominent member of Congress as an appeal to Brazil’s “family values,” made Eleonora Pereira angry.
Eleonora’s son, Jose Ricardo, was murdered a year ago—victim of a rising tide of homophobic and transphobic hate crimes in Brazil.
Eleonora told us that the family values she knows are those shared by mothers all over the world: refusing to see your child insulted, injured, or even killed simply because of who they are. And Eleonora is not alone.
On September 29th, our group of “Equality Moms” in Brazil are traveling to Congress to demand support for a proposed Anti-Homophobia bill that would protect ALL Brazilians from violence and discrimination.
Will you take a moment to sign and share the statement the moms will deliver to Congress—and to their fellow Brazilians—affirming EQUALITY as the true family value?
www.allout.org/
maespelaigualdade
Hate is not a family value, nor is it part of Catholic teaching - although many of those promoting this kind of hatred and violence claim to be doing so to protect family values (as the Brazilian congress quoted), or Catholic teaching, completely overlooking the parts of Catholic teaching we don’t hear often enough:
It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the objects of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church’s pastors wherever it occurs…. The particular orientation of the homosexual is not a sin. (emphasis added).
-CDF Pastoral Letter
Lend your support to the Brazilian Moms for Equality. Cross to the website, sign and distribute the petition:
BECAUSE EQUALITY IS A FAMILY VALUE
With homophobic and transphobic attacks and murders on the rise, Brazil is fast becoming a world leader — in anti-LGBT hate crimes. It’s time for the country that celebrates its diversity to be a world leader in offering full equality to ALL of its citizens.
I stand proudly with this movement of courageous, outspoken “Equality Moms” of Brazil, as they speak out against the hate, and demand an end to discrimination and violence.
I just did
Related articles
- “I’d rather have a dead son than a gay son” (ismaelmelendez.wordpress.com)
- Brazil’s Rising Evangelism Spurs LGBT Rights Outrage (pinkbananaworld.com)
It is sad but true that no amount of legislation will protect the lives of gay or transgendered people, in the same way that non-gay or non-transgendered people are not protected. Murder happens. It’s part of the human condition seemingly. We have punished and legislated against murder for millennia, and yet it is still happening. I think sadly of Matthew Shepherd, of Gwen Araujo, of the nameless thousands of Congolese women and children, of the anonymous prostitutes murdered regularly in South and Latin America, and elsewhere, of the men executed for stealing to feed their families, I mean, it is just so overwhelming.
Attitudes need to change, words need to change, people need to change. That is the only way to prevent the carnage visited upon not just LGBT people, but everyone. Whilst our politicians still think state violence can solve problems via the overused application of war, while we breed a need for punitive punishment in our children, while we sit back and allow violence to fester on our TV screens, violence against everyone is a possibility.
And it is particularly sad that, as you point out, many, many Christians advocate violence through their words, either consciously or subconsciously. You see it in the rituals associated with the armed forces,with the calls for conservative legislation that demonises whole groups of people, it is sickening.
I sometimes think there is no hope for us as a species. Violence is part of nature, but we have evolved out of nature now, we can no longer call ourselves natural beasts and yet we still cling to the idea of an aggressive and offensive discourse as our natural right; in politics, in business, in society.
I truly hope that the All Out campaign can achieve something, but it takes commitment by lawmakers AND society at large to change things. Whilst we have people (politicians, clergy, media stars etc.) declaring that LGBT people are not worth as much as non-LGBT people, then far too many people will follow suit.