By Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has reportedly declared the country must not become a “gay tourism paradise,” writes The Guardian in its latest report.
The far-right president, who previously claimed he’d rather his son were dead than gay and called himself a “proud homophobe,” said: “If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life.”
“But we can’t let this place become known as a gay tourism paradise. Brazil can’t be a country of the gay world, of gay tourism. We have families,” he continued, according to Brazilian magazine Exame, as reported by The Guardian.
LGBT+ activists strongly rebuked Bolsonaro’s latest attack on the LGBT+ community.
David Miranda, a Brazilian LGBT+ activist, told the Guardian that Bolsonaro’s actions are not that of “a head of state — this is a national disgrace.”
“He is staining the image of our country in every imaginable way,” Miranda added.
Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-LGBT history
In 2011, Bolsonaro told Playboy that he would rather his son die than be gay, saying: “I would be incapable of loving a gay son. I would rather he died in an accident.”
During his presidential campaign, Bolsonaro also stood by a claim that he would punch gay people if he saw them kissing in public.
Defending the comments, the then-candidate compared gay kisses to “a pedophile’s right to have sex with a two-year-old.”
He told Time: “I do not kiss my wife on the street. Why face society? Why take that into the school? Little children of six or seven, watching two men kiss as if the government wanted them to do. Is this democracy?”