Right-Wing Homophobe Jair Bolsonaro Proceeds to Brazil’s Run-Off Election
October 17, 2018Right-wing homophobe Jair Bolsonaro is very close to becoming Brazil’s next President, reports the BBC.
The Social Liberal Party leader won the first round of the election on October 7 but failed to succeed in getting the 50 percent majority needed to take office. A run-off election will now take place between him and left-wing Worker’s Party candidate Fernando Haddad.
Both candidates have been marred by controversy during the election. Haddad for replacing a successor convicted of corruption and money laundering, causing many Brazilians to be sceptical of the once-popular party, and Bolsonaro for his outrageously homophobic, racist and sexist remarks.
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.”
In response, left-wing Brazilians have created the #NotHim movement, with huge protests taking place across the country begging voters to elect anyone but him, the BBC reports.
"The things he says are so grotesque and absurd, I don't believe he deserves to have a voice or deserves to have a role so important as the president of Brazil," one protester in Rio de Janeiro said.
Bolosanaro was stabbed at a rally earlier this month but is still leading in the polls.
His followers have only been egged on as the country sees a surge in political violence.
“Some guy with one of my shirts commits an excess,” Bolsonaro has said of the violence. “What do I have to do with it? I lament it.”
“I ask people not to do this,” he added. “I have no control over millions and millions of people who support me.”
More than 70 politically motivated attacks have occurred in the country this month alone – at least 50 of which were caused by Bolosanaro supporters.
In Nova Iguaçu, just north of Rio de Janeiro, a trans woman was allegedly beaten with a metal bar while onlookers yelled transphobic insults, saying, “I hope Bolsonaro wins to kill this piece of trash.”
While videos have surfaced of Brazillian soccer fans singing “Bolsonaro will kill faggots!”
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