BBC Faces Backlash After Calling Bolsonaro’s Homophobia a “Refreshing Break From Political Correctness”
October 31, 2018A BBC twitter account has sparked online backlashafter sending out a tweet questing whether Brazil’s new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was “racist, sexist, homophobic or a refreshing break from political correctness?”
The tweet was sent out by BBC Monitoring, which focuses on global mass media. Just one day after it was sent out the tweet was deleted with only the statement: “We have removed an earlier tweet about statements made by Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro.”
One user responded to the tweet saying: “Never have I been more utterly disgusted by the BBC than I am reading this headline.”
“You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.”
“So nice for women, LGBT people and minorities to know that the BBC thinks it’s a toss-up whether persecuting them is bad or ‘refreshing,'” wrote another.
Bolsonaro has a long history of anti-gay, sexist and racist rhetoric.
In 2015 he said patients in hospital had a right to reject blood from gay people. He also told TIME last month that he would punch two men in the street if he saw them kissing.
“I do not kiss my wife on the street. Why face society? Why take that into the school? Little children of 6 or 7, watching two men kiss as the government wanted them to do. Is this democracy?”
He also equated homosexuality to paedophilia, “So let’s respect the paedophile’s right to have sex with a two-year-old? Would that unite [Brazil]?”
In a 2011 interview with Playboy Bolsonarosaid he said, “I would be incapable of loving a gay son. I prefer that he die in an accident.”
He reiterated his views in a 2013 interview with Stephen Fry, “No father would ever take pride in having a gay son… Pride? Happiness? Celebrate if his son turns out gay? No way.”
“Look, you have to have some sort of moral compass bearing in your life. They want to reach our children in order to turn the children into gay adults to satisfy their sexuality in the future.
“So, these are the fundamentalist homosexual groups that are trying to take over society.”
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