Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has declared that his country must not become a ‘gay tourism paradise’.
Bolsonaro, 64, sparked an immediate backlash from the LGBT community for his comments during a breakfast meeting with reporters.
He said: ‘If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life.
Bolsonaro even once said that he would rather have a dead son than a gay one while also telling openly gay British actor Stephen Fry that ‘Brazilian society doesn’t like homosexuals.’
In another attack, he accused ‘homosexual fundamentalists’ of brainwashing children to ‘become gays and lesbians to satisfy them sexually in the future’.
He also once told a female lawmaker she was too ugly to rape, and said the birth of his daughter, after having four sons, was a ‘moment of weakness.’
And his latest comments have again caused anger in the LGBT community.
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Congressman and LGBT activist David Miranda told the Guardian: “This is not a head of state—this is a national disgrace.”
Renan Quinalha, lawyer and activist, said that Bolsonaro’s remarks give a “green light to already alarming levels of violence against the LGBT community.”
His comments come after he claimed that 1,000 men undergo penis amputations every year in Brazil due to a lack of basic hygiene.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain, called the state of affairs ‘ridiculous and sad’ in a press conference in Brasilia after visiting the Education Ministry.
The Brazilian Urology Society confirmed the figure, adding some men are forced to have their genitals removed due to untreatable infections, as well as cancer and complications of HIV.
“In Brazil, we have 1,000 penis amputations a year due to a lack of water and soap,’ Bolsonaro said.
‘We have to find a way to get out of the bottom of this hole.” (DailyMail)
