RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Marcelo Crivella, mayor of Rio and nephew of the most successful evangelical bishop-entrepreneur Edir Macedo, owner of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD), recently drew attention with his authoritarian and prejudiced measure of censoring books with LGBT themes at Rio’s International Book Fair two weeks ago.
The measure was widely rejected, with Crivella’s censors being greeted with booing at the event and with the right to protest also embracing the rejection of Rio’s governor Wilson Witzel.
Crivella had the support of the controversial politician, and the support of a judge who defends that homosexuality is a disease, in order to carry out its LGBTphobic censorship.
In addition to the immense popular rejection of his measure, Crivella’s censorship motivated YouTuber Felipe Neto to make the decision to buy all the books with LGBT themes of the Biennial, in a total of 14,000 copies, and distribute them free to the population before they were taken by the city hall.
The Youtuber had them wrapped in black plastic with the words “This book is unsuitable for backward, retrograde and prejudiced people”.
After this action, Neto began to receive threats and stopped participating in events, even stating on his social media that he has sent his mother overseas fearing the threats.
Now, a response is being made, this time by Clarissa Tércio, a state assemblywoman in Pernambuco, member of the Christian Social Party (PSC), and daughter of pastor Francisco Tércio, president of the influential Assembly of God Church (Assembleia de Deus).
She decided to distribute ten thousand copies of the book “Male Born Male, Female Born Female: Unmasking the fallacious gender ideology” (“Macho Nasce Macho, Fêmea Nasce Fêmea – Desmascarando a Falácia da Ideologia de Gênero”) written by Brazilian Isaac Silva.
Silva, according to his Facebook profile, is a “Pastor, theologian and philosopher and TV host of …… the Assembly of God Church (Assembleia de Deus) in Recife”.
Tércio intends to distribute this material in Pernambuco and declared: “Since Felipe Neto has distributed 10,000 copies of books that promote this line of thought, the Ideology of Gender, the homosexual relationship to deceive our children, we will also do something here in Pernambuco. We will distribute 10,000 books throughout Pernambuco.”
Once again, the troop of evangelical churches that is Bolsonaro’s fundamental basis and the extreme right, shows that it is willing to mobilize all its resources to spread its ideas of intolerance, fighting so that Brazil, a record-breaking country in violence against women, LGBT people and homeless, retains this sad record.
The Assembleias de Deus are a group of Pentecostal denominations in Brazil founded by Daniel Berg and Gunnar Vingren, who came to Brazil as missionaries from the Swedish Pentecostal movement.
The Assembleias de Deus are related to the worldwide Pentecostal movement, and some groups are affiliated with the Assemblies of God. Currently, the organization is one of the largest Protestant denominations worldwide.
The book “Male Born Male, Female Born Female: Unmasking the fallacious gender ideology” is described as “wake-up call for the danger that gender ideology represents for humanity. Fighting this ideology is a matter of survival.”