Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jul 15, 2008 / 11:36 am
The Brazilian Senate is considering a bill approved unanimously and without debate by the country’s House of Representatives that aims to promote homosexuality and prohibit Christian teaching on the issue, under the guise of combating discrimination.
According to the Association of the Defense of Life, the bill would make it crime punishable by five years in prison to impede expressions of “homosexual affection” in public places or private places open to the public.
It would also punish those who deny employment to openly homosexual teachers in schools with up to three years imprisonment, making it impossible for Catholic or Christian schools to prevent homosexuals from joining their faculties.
The bill would impose prison sentences on any kind of moral, ethical, philosophical or psychological expression that questions homosexual practices. In this way, “a priest, a pastor, a teacher or even an average citizen who says in a sermon, a classroom or public conversation that homosexual acts are sinful, disordered or an illness could be denounced and detained,” the association said.