Monday, February 16, 2009

Brazilian Government Says 99% of Citizens Are “Homophobic” and Must Be Reeducated

Brazilian Government Says 99% of Citizens Are “Homophobic” and Must Be Reeducated

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

BRASILIA, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) — The Brazilian government has determined that 99% of its citizens are “homophobic,” and therefore must be reeducated, according to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo.

The results are taken from a study that tested for “homophobia” by asking people to comment on such statements as “God made men and women with different sexes so that they could fulfill their role and have children.” The 92% of Brazilians who agreed partially or completely with the statement were labeled “homophobic.”

Another test question for “homophobia” was, “Homosexuality is a sin against the laws of God.” Fifty-eight percent of Brazilians agreed.

Those who agreed partially or completely that “Homosexuality is an illness that should be treated” (41%) were also labeled “homophobic,” as were those who objected to homosexuals kissing and hugging in public (64%).

According to O Globo, Brazil’s federal government will use the data “to plan new policies, and warns that it has now detected a dark consequence of so much prejudice: intolerance.” The study was performed by an organization linked to the socialist Labor Party, which currently occupies the nation's executive branch and predominates in the legislature.

“There’s no way [for the government] not to involve itself, because intolerance must manifest itself in crimes, including crimes committed by agents of the government,” said Paulo Biagi, coordinator of the government’s official “Brazil Without Homophobia” campaign.

Biagi says that the government will now begin to “rearticulate” the case for its proposed “anti-homophobia” law, which would make it illegal to criticize homosexual behavior in Brazil.

In addition, the government will be launching the National Plan for the Promotion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Citizens in May. It will also soon initiate a television campaign to combat “homophobia” in conjunction with ten other Latin American countries.

“What is surprising is how a population that is 99% against homosexuality is accepting passively that its 100% pro-homosexuality government is lifting homosexual acts to the level of inviolable sacredness,” wrote Brazilian pro-family activist Julio Severo on his blog, Last Days Watchman, “and at the same time it is lowering 99% of Brazilians to the class of ‘ignorant mob’ that should be forcefully condemned to state policies of reeducation.”

Related Links:

“Study” in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo: 99% Brazilians do not accept homosexuality
http://lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com/2009/02/study-in-brazilian-newspaper-o-globo-99.html

In Portuguese:
http://juliosevero.blogspot.com/2009/02/pesquisa-no-jornal-o-globo-indica-99.html

Related LifeSiteNews coverage:

Brazilian President: Opposition to Homosexuality is a “Perverse Disease”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08060904.html

Brazilian Government Punishes Dissenters of Pro-Homosexuality Policy
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08032702.html

Brazilian Homosexuals File “Hate” Charges Against Brazilian Christians
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07112805.html

Brazil Attacks Against Family Defenders Backed by Pro-Homosexual Regime of Nation’s President
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07073108.html

Source: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09021301.html

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Pro-Abortion Law Firm Abuses UN Treaties to Badger Brazil on Abortion

Pro-Abortion Law Firm Abuses UN Treaties to Badger Brazil on Abortion

by Susan Yoshihara

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a New York-based abortion advocacy group, is claiming Brazil violates an international right to maternal health when a pregnant woman dies in that country. According to CRR and its advocates at the United Nations, such a right to maternal health includes universal legalized abortion. This is the latest move in a strategy to create a new international human right to abortion.

At the end of last year, CRR prepared a “communication” on behalf of the family of Alyne da Silva Pimentel, a 28-year old Afro-Brazilian woman who died while pregnant after da Silva was misdiagnosed and not given timely emergency care. The communication was sent to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Under the Optional Protocol of the Convention, which 90 states have ratified, individuals may communicate directly with the committee if they feel their country has violated their rights under a treaty. The committee is allowed to investigate the story and offer its “views” on the matter.

Use of the UN committees is part of a broader attempt to get national high courts and legal authorities to find a new right to maternal health that includes abortion. For this reason, CRR refers to the da Silva letter as a legal case, and asserts that the CEDAW committee is authorized to find Brazil in violation of international law. In fact, the committee has no legal standing, and can only offer comments and recommendations, which governments are free to ignore.

The communication is one of various means CRR is putting pressure on the Brazilian government to slacken its strict abortion laws. In 2007, CRR prepared a “shadow report” for the CEDAW committee’s review of Brazil, saying “there is a critical need for the revision of abortion laws in Brazil,” due to the fact that women who want terminate a pregnancy must seek clandestine abortions which are “unsafe,” thus violating their right to nondiscrimination in health care.

At the 2007 Women Deliver conference in London, CRR’s Luisa Cabral announced that CRR was focusing on Brazil because it has both high maternal mortality rates and left-leaning jurists. The plan, according to Cabral, is to get the high court to cite CEDAW interpretations of international law in a decision involving the death of a pregnant woman.

The overall strategy was launched at the same 2007 conference as the “International Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights.” The initiative’s sponsors include the UN Population Fund and the UN Special Rapporteur for Health. It is chaired by CRR.

Even though the United States is not a state party to CEDAW or the Optional Protocol, certain lawmakers are pushing the new agenda. Both houses of the U.S. Congress passed resolutions last year to promote US funding of “global initiatives” toward reducing maternal mortality, sponsored by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA). Original language in both resolutions which attempted to promote abortion under the guise of a “right to maternal health” was defeated by pro-life members of Congress.

Source: C-Fam

Friday, February 13, 2009

“Study” in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo: 99% Brazilians do not accept homosexuality

“Study” in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo: 99% Brazilians do not accept homosexuality

Lula administration will use “study” to make new public policies to fight the “homophobia” of 99% Brazilians

Julio Severo

According to a report in the O Globo newspaper of February 7, 2009, “Only 1% Brazilians above the age of16 years do not discriminate against homosexuals”. What does this “study” mean? That only 1% Brazilians do not kill homosexuals? That only 1% Brazilians do not assault homosexuals?

Since the term “discrimination” is often interpreted to mean words and views against homosexuality, what are the implications of that “study”?

The “study” was led by the Brazilian socialist foundations Perseu Abramo and Rosa Luxemburgo, which polled how many Brazilians do not accept homosexuality. Perseu Abramo Foundation has connections to the Workers’ Party, of President Lula.

Taking advantage of the ideological echo of those foundations, the Lula administration will now use the results of that “study” to make more forceful policies against “homophobia”. In the words of O Globo, the “study” indicated that “every three days of 2008, there was at least one hate crime related to sexual orientation in Brazil, according to the ‘Brazil without Homophobia’ federal program”.

Do crimes against those that practice homosexuality occur in Brazil? Of course. Declaring that most homosexuals killed are transvestites, Oswaldo Braga, president of the Movimento Gay de Minas, said, “They are homosexuals more involved in criminality, as prostitution and drug-trafficking, exposing them more to violence”. (Tribuna de Minas, 09/03/2007, page 3.)

Any Brazilian citizen, whether homosexual or not, who exposes himself in environments of drugs and prostitution runs the risk of suffering assaults and murder.

Yet, murders, of any kind of citizen, are nothing new in the hyper-violent Brazil. In the last 25 years, while 800,000 Brazilians were murdered, only 2,000 homosexuals met the same end, according to the Grupo Gay da Bahia, the oldest gay militant group in Brazil.

However, the “study” did not mention directly murders of homosexuals, but only “crimes”. While every three days 414 Brazilians are murdered — not mentioning other crimes —, every three days only one crime is committed against homosexuals.

No, the Lula administration is not looking at the sky-rocketing number of 414 murders. Its eyes are focused on the one crime against homosexuals every three days. That one crime can be any “crime” — even people annoyed by two men openly and brazenly kissing one another.

The Lula administration’s eyes are also on the “discrimination” of the 99% Brazilians. To eradicate “intolerance” against homosexuality is much more important than working to save the lives of 50,000 Brazilians murdered yearly in hyper-violent Brazil.

So much violence in Brazil is no wonder. Life lost its value under an administration that, instead of protecting its citizens, works to legalize abortion and make homosexuality a sacred right.

What is surprising is how a population that is 99% against homosexuality is accepting passively that its 100% pro-homosexuality government is lifting the homosexual acts to the level of inviolable sacredness, and at the same time it is lowering 99% Brazilians to the class of “ignorant mob” that should be forcefully condemned to state policies of reeducation.

Such socialist action demands, as always, media support. No one better than the big Brazilian media to help the government to reeducate 99% of the Brazilian population. According to the BBC in Portuguese, soap operas of TV Globo — which is connected to the O Globo newspaper — increased the number of divorces in Brazil in the last 40 years. Is it possible now to increase the number of people accepting homosexuality?

With the assistance of Globo and other liberal TV channels, the “ignorant” people will be reeducated to see homosexuality according to the politically-correct trends. Not mentioning that, using public schools and other means, the federal program “Brazil without Homophobia” will spare no measure to eliminate “discrimination” of Brazilian citizens.

While the Brazilian Department of Health has spent 15 million dollars in lubricants so that homosexuals may be occupied and entertained in their carnal relations, 99% of the population will be “occupied” being chased and reeducated for “discrimination”.

That “discrimination”, as the Lula administration and Brazilian media define, comprehends any view contrary to homosexuality. It makes no difference what 99% of the Brazilian population think, it makes no difference what 99% Christians believe — the program “Brazil without Homophobia” is determined to “heal” them, according to the words of Lula himself, from their “perverse disease”.

Because of socialism, Brazil is facing today a monumental ideological tyranny, where 1% of the population is determined to impose on the other 99% not only censorship of their convictions and views, but legal persecution as well.

Very wisely someone said,

“In the past, homosexuality was illegal in Brazil. Afterwards, it was tolerated. Today it is accepted as a normal behavior. I will leave Brazil before it is mandatory”.

Source: http://lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

‘Opposing homosexuality makes you sick’

Brazilian President: Opposition to Homosexuality is a “Perverse Disease

Persecution over homosexuality looms for Brazilian Christians

Are you ready for persecution at the hands of gay activists?

Brazil without Homophobia: What the Lula administration is doing to impose the homosexual agenda on Brazil

NGO Committee Rejects Brazilian Homosexual Group for UN Accreditation

NGO Committee Rejects Brazilian Homosexual Group for UN Accreditation

By Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) After two years of debate, the UN committee responsible for reviewing applications from non-government organizations (NGOs) has voted to reject Brazil’s Associação Brasileira de Gays, Lésbicas e Transgêneros (ABGLT) over questions of the group’s position on pedophilia. ABGLT came under scrutiny by the NGO committee over allegations that one of the organization’s founders was being investigated for posting essays promoting pedophilia on his blog.

The NGO Committee member from Egypt urged the committee not to make a rushed decision on any organization where there was even the “slightest shadow of doubt” about its involvement in pedophilia. He argued that the answers provided by AGBLT so far were not sufficient to clear the case and make members comfortable that the NGO did not have any members or associates involved in such a “deplorable act.”

The 19-member NGO committee is a subcommittee of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of five principal organs of the UN which approves and governs participation of all UN NGOs. The NGO Committee uses various criteria to recommend official status, with ultimate authority residing with ECOSOC.

Consultative status is a key means for civil society to access the UN system. Accredited NGOs are invited to participate in UN meetings, can deliver oral and written reports, and may organize events on UN premises.

The committee voted against deferring a decision on AGBLT and rejected the application in a roll call vote of 8 (Guinea, Pakistan, Qatar, Russian Federation, Sudan, Burundi, China, Egypt) to 6 (Colombia, Israel, Peru, Romania, United Kingdom, United States).

Debates within the NGO committee meetings over applications from homosexual rights groups have become increasingly heated in the last few years. While ECOSOC almost always accepts subcommittee recommendations, it has made exceptions to accredit radical homosexual groups. In two instances, homosexual rights groups have received a negative recommendation from the NGO Committee which the ECOSOC council has subsequently overturned.

After the vote, the representative from the United Kingdom said she deeply regretted the committee’s decision to reject the NGO and that it did nothing more than reinforce the view that the committee could not properly undertake the work for which it was tasked. For years, the United Kingdom has championed homosexual rights groups’ participation in the UN. The UK rep stated, “Simply put, it is their right.”

The observer for the Czech Republic, speaking on behalf of the European Union, associated herself with the statement delivered by the United Kingdom and added that “Withholding its status, the NGO Committee acted in a discriminatory manner against the NGO, which has every right to participate in the work of the UN.”

The observer for Brazil, who had vouched for the organization earlier, said that the committee had failed to evaluate the merits of the organization and instead acted as a “censorship chamber” on what kind of NGOs were allowed to express their views and contribute to the work of the UN.

The ECOSOC council is expected to review the recommendations of NGO Committee at its July session in Geneva.

Source: C-Fam

Read also:

Luiz Mott, the Top Homosexual Leader in Brazil and One of the Founders of ABGLT, Posts Home Addresses of Julio Severo and Other Pro-Family Activists

Luiz Mott Under Investigation for Pedophilia

ABGLT Files “Hate” Charges Against Julio Severo and Other Brazilian Christians

In Defense of Marriage: When Rights Trump Freedom

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Brazilian Populism: Good for Politicians, Bad for the Poor

Brazilian Populism: Good for Politicians, Bad for the Poor

Written by Augusto Zimmermann

Friday, 06 February 2009

Populism reflects the rhetorical style of political leaders who claim to govern directly for the people. In the context of Latin America, populism can be used to describe "mass-popular movements... based on an emotive call... and often organized around a single charismatic leader". As the political theorist Carlos Alberto Montaner puts it:

“Populism is an ideological trend and a form of governance that amalgamates all the errors and political vices blithely practiced by Latin Americans throughout the 20th century: strong-man rule, patronage, statism, collectivism and anti-Americanism."

Politicians whose view can be described as populist wish their people to regard them as endowed with real or imaginary attributes of goodness, generosity, courage, and concern for the poor. These are politicians who pretend to speak for the people even though, as the late historian José Honório Rodrigues observed, socio-economic problems in Brazil have been aggravated by such "false leaders of the agitator type, restless and dominated by feelings of shame and guilt."

During the colonial period, the Portuguese Crown was largely dependent on the landed aristocracy for the development of Brazil's economy and for its military security. Landowners administered justice across their lands and possessed their own private militias for the purposes of maintaining public order. Being independent of the law, they became paternal protectors of the population surrounding their homes.

Hence, as history professor Márcio Valença points out, "a patron-client relationship was based on mutual exchange and the expectation of both sides that it would provide future yields. The patrão provided resources, protection and links to the outside world... The "client" offered support and obedience... The patron-client system depended on the interaction between individuals and favoured informal flexible relationships".

With the fall of the Brazilian Empire on 15 November 1889, local rural bosses became the mediators between citizens and the government. These local bosses maintained their traditional power by demanding the personal loyalty of those under their paternal protection. The economic security and social well being of individuals flowed directly from their bosses' personal dominion. There was indeed a certain sense of noblesse oblige on their part, with their vassals developing an attitude of personal loyalty to them.

As the late American anthropologist Charles Wagley explained:
Frequently the local political boss, the coronel was a sort of patrão to his followers, who received favors and expected future favors. A lower-class worker without a patrão of the kind or another was a man without a protector in time of need. The patrão provided some measure of social security - generally the only form available to the worker.

An important text for those interested in understanding, in detail, the role played by the political boss in Brazilian society, and in particular the way political power has been exercised since the beginnings of Brazil's colonization, is the classic text, Os Donos do Poder (The Owners of Power) written in 1957 by the late Brazilian jurist Raymundo Faoro. In one of the last and most important paragraphs of this seminal book, Faoro provides a general explanation of why personal power is of such significance in Brazil:

"The chief protects particular interests, grants privileges and incentives, and distribute jobs and benefits. It is expected that he will make justice without any attention to objective and impersonal rules. In the person of the sovereign is concentrated all the hopes of the rich and the poor, because the state is the centre of all power in Brazilian society... The chief is not subject to the landed aristocracy or the bourgeoisie. He governs... directly over the nation.

"He speaks directly to his people, not intermediaries... He is the people's father, not... a legal and constitutional ruler. He is the good prince who... carries out welfare-state policies in order to guarantee the support of the masses. To avoid any [real] popular participation, he often appeals to street mobilizations; public rallies where the only thing left behind are the dust of his meaningless words.

"As the son of state providentialism, he strengthens the state power by using all the means this [statist] tradition offers. In extreme cases, he will become the social dictator of a socialistic type, who satisfies popular aspirations by calming down the people with bread and circus."

The process of industrialization initiated in the 1930s created a large urban class which developed apart from the old influence of the landed aristocracy. This period of internal migration saw political power transferred from a landed oligarchy to urban political leaders. The rise of populism is identified as a by-product of that industrialization process emerging on the political scene when the popular masses migrated to the urban centres in search of new opportunities.

However, all this change of socio-economic structure did not modify traditional patterns of behaviour, since those who moved from the countryside to the cities preserved the tendency to view all relationships, including those with public officials, in personal rather than impersonal (legal) terms. In other words, those in power were still expected to be "generous" towards supporters and personal acquaintances.

The first political leader to capitalise on the preservation of the political mind-set inherited from the countryside was Getúlio Vargas, a prosperous caudillo (rural oligarch). In 1937, he masterminded a coup that installed the Estado Novo (New State), a populist dictatorship where he assumed the role of paternal ruler who directly appealed to the popular masses as their supreme ruler and benefactor. As Joseph Page points out:

"Upon assuming the presidency after the revolution of 1930, he set about creating a relationship of dependency not only between government and private enterprise... but also between government and labor. This relationship turned out to be a mirror image of the traditional tie between haves and have-nots in rural Brazil.

"Peasants who moved to the cities encountered a social structure quite different from the one to which they were accustomed. They have to live in amorphous slums and, as Brazil industrialized, to toil in impersonal workplaces. Thus it was easy for Vargas to substitute the government as the authority figure that would take care of the needs of employees, just as the landlord had done in the countryside.

Curiously, Vargas was a lawyer and landowner who began his political career with the support of other rural oligarchs from his native Rio Grande do Sul. But he was wise enough to perceive that the urbanization process would dramatically reduce the power of landowners. Originally, however, as the political philosopher and former Brazilian ambassador J.O. de Meira Penna explains:

"Vargas was linked mostly to the landlords of his own state, whose interests he continued defending even after he had turned into a populist rabble-rouser. Just after the 1930 "revolution", one of his young followers, Lindolfo Collor, suggested the introduction of a new labor law... Vargas accepted Collor's ideas with misgivings: "Let's hope this little German will not cause us too much trouble"... But then he understood that the new labor and social welfare laws were copied from the Italian fascist Carta del Lavoro, keeping labor unions strictly under the thumb of the Ministry of Labor in his own government. Thus, the proletarian masses could eventually be mobilized to his advantage..."

Vargas constructed around himself the image of a paternal ruler modelled on the pater familias. He posed as the great "father" of the working classes, expecting absolute loyalty from them to such an extent that, from 1937 to 1945, laws were little more than a tool for the imposition of his personal will. In fact, Vargas was virtually free to instruct public authorities to kill, arrest, and torture anyone he wished.

After visiting the country in 1938, a famous political scientist, Karl Loewenstein, wrote that the greatest asset of the Brazilian dictatorship was the dictator himself, who, as he put it, carried the regime "on his shoulders":

"The dictatorship is personalistic in character. In that, it is altogether different from the European totalitarian pattern. No government party protects it, and no coercive ideology supports it. The regime rests on no visible props, except the army; it is based on the popularity of one man alone."

Even since, some of the most successful Brazilian politicians have been proud "disciples" of Vargas. They admire the former dictator for his "progressive" policies of national-statism and welfare-state labourism, which are also very appreciated by voters who wait expectantly for a "saviour" to inaugurate a "tropical paradise" in Brazil.

These voters rationalise: "Vargas was a dictator but for us he was good". Or, as one worker put it: "I never permitted anyone to say anything bad about Vargas... I knew that he always gave us benefits, my work papers... I thought, I am a worker, and he has given me so many benefits".

According to the Brazilian sociologist Maria Lucia Victor Barbosa, populism is strong in the country because many Brazilians "make a more emotional reading of the world", so that they are also keen to accept demagogical promises of "messianic nature". This undemocratic aspect of Brazilian society might explain the results of a survey conducted by the United Nations which found in 2004 that only 30.6% of Brazilians regard themselves as democrats.

The survey may reflect nostalgic feelings for previous "benevolent" dictatorships. Its results could have been worse had those who answered favourably to the idea of democracy been asked to explain what they mean by it. Due to the nature of Brazilian society, many Brazilians associate democracy with majority will but not with the rule of law. Indeed, the whole process of "mass mobilization" tends toward the personification of power, isolating the supposedly "democratic" power of demagogic-populist leaders from the rule of law.

As a result, under the current populist government of President Lula da Silva, corruption has reached unprecedented levels. The Lula administration is responsible for the biggest series of corruption scandals in the country's history. According to James Petras, a left-wing sociology professor and expert on Brazilian politics, "every sector of Lula's Workers' Party (PT) has been implicated in bribery, fraud, vote buying, theft of public funds, failure to report illicit campaign financing, and a host of other felonious behaviour".

The fact that President Lula remains so popular in the midst of so many scandals involving hundreds of millions of US dollars should come as no surprise to those familiar with the political workings of Brazil. For instance, the Government has spent millions of dollars on political propaganda. While such propaganda does nothing to reduce social problems, it serves to boost the President's charismatic image as "a former factory worker with no university degree who speaks to his people as one of them".

Support to the government is also obtained from the fact that the federal administration has employed within the state machinery thousands of members and supporters of the ruling PT party. A large number of party cadres, including trade union leaders, have been appointed to high positions in the government. This is so common place that a retired Supreme Court chief justice, Maurício Corrêa, has denounced that even the most highly technical jobs are going to unqualified party members, who nonetheless pay the party a levy constituting up to 20% of their salaries.

Another example of populism taking place involves the distribution of money to families in the form of a supposed anti-poverty programme called Bolsa Família (family fund). This programme is controlled by the federal government and provides direct cash to millions of Brazilians, roughly a fifth of the country's population.

Such "generosity" offers no real solution for the problem of poverty, although it encourages the poor to regard President Lula as a "generous" paternal leader and provider. Unfortunately, demagogic governmental programmes such as the Bolsa Família end up aggravating the excess in government bureaucracy and spending, which is actually one of the reasons that public debt, taxes and interest rates are so high in Brazil, with its government claiming an estimated 40% of GDP in the form of taxes and contributions.

In Brazil, taxation to subsidise government expanding is overwhelming and the amount of red tape confronted at all levels of government is simply enormous. According to the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom, "starting a business in Brazil takes more than three times the world average of 43 days, and obtaining a business license takes more than the global average of 234 days". (1)

Finally, "inflexible employment regulations", which is another problem that populism certainly aggravates, is found to have created "a risk aversion for companies that would otherwise hire more people and grow".

(1) Miles, Marc A. et al; 2006 Index of Economic Freedom. The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, 2006, p.120

Augusto Zimmermann, LLB, LLM, PhD is a Lecturer in Law at Murdoch University, Western Australia.

Source: Brazzil Magazine, Los Angeles/CA

Divulgation: http://www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com