The eyes of the world's TBLG community were turned toward Brazil yesterday as Senator Ana Rita as promised brought PLC 122 to a vote. It was a TBLG human rights bill that had been stalled by fundamentalist religious forces for 12 years as increasing number of trans and gay people have died in the country or faced escalating levels of horrific anti-BTLG violence.
It didn't go well. 29 senators voted against it, on 12 in favor and 2 abstained. The defeat also erased the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity from a review of Brazil's penal code.
PLC 122 would have prohibited discrimination or inciting violence on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation and it went down to defeat as evangelical leaders like Silas Malafaia gloated
“You can swear, we’re hahahaha plc122 [the bill outlawing LGBT discrimination] is dead, hahahha try something else and wait a few years hahahaaha, if God laughs at the wicked, imagine me, hahahaha.”
“Our chances to add the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity into the penal code are now near impossible,” said Luiz Henrique Coletto, Vice President of the Secular Humanist League of Brazil (LiHS), in a statement to LGBTQ Nation.
“This means that we have no nationwide federal protection against discrimination of, and violence against LGBT people,” he added. “The vote was a clear demonstration of anti-LGBT prejudice in Brazil.”
The Brazilian Forces of Intolerance won this round, but TBLG activists in Brazil, despite the disappointing defeat are continuing the fight and considering other options. They have been successful in the Brazilian court system, and will go in that direction to obtain the human rights they so desperately need. With Brazil set to host both the upcoming World Cup this summer and the Olympics in 2016, local activists are calling upon the world to do more to financially support indigenous Brazilian LGBT rights organizations.
They are also calling upon the United States, the European Union, the UN, the OAS and other international human rights actors to pressure President Dilma Rousseff and Brazilian legislators into getting thei nation to live up to the various human rights agreements they have signed.
Said attorney Paulo Roberto, a member of GADvS (Group of Lawyers for Sexual Diversity), to LGBTQ Nation, “Brazil is in violation of international resolutions and statements where it signed a commitment to protect GLBT citizens, both at the level of the United Nations and Organization of American States.”
“Furthermore,” he added, “If this country is not safe for our own people considering anti-gay violence, how can it be safe for people coming for the world cup and the Olympics?”
Indeed. If it's not safe for its TBLG children, sooner or later it won't be safe for you ostensibly cis and straight Brazilians either.
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