Brazilian President Leads The Way

International News, By Joal, 22nd September, 2008

Why can’t every head of state sound like this?

On the verge of an election, Brazilian President Luiz Lula has made some stirring claims about the apparent contradictions in Brazilian society and politics.

The President indicated that if some politicians wanted to refuse homosexuals the same rights as heterosexuals, then “why doesn’t the Brazilian government refuse to receive the taxes that [homosexuals] pay?”

The president also repeated on air the statement made at Brazil’s first National Conference of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals, held earlier this year. At the conference he called homophobia ”...the most perverse disease impregnated in the human head.”

Lula says that proposed laws that would give same-sex couples rights equal to heterosexual couples have been debated for more than a decade, and criticised the Brazillian congress for not acting to end discrimination.
“We must stop this hypocrisy because we know they exist,” said Lula to TV Brazil. “There are men living with men, women living with women, and many times they live extraordinarily well…they build a life together, they work together. The important thing is for them to be Brazilian citizens, for them to be committed to the nation. I support the civil union.”

Despite Brazil having some of the most successful pride marches in the world, the country still struggles with gay bashings and homophobia.

Although some politicians are refusing to support same-sex equality, Lula says it’s encouraging that many Brazilian states and cities are passing their own laws to by-pass the slow progress at a national level.

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