RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The National Association of Evangelical Jurists (ANAJURE) began to be conceived in 2007, during Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) second term, and finally got off the ground in 2012, founded by three Northeastern attorneys in ex-President Dilma Rousseff’s (PT) second year. But it is in the Jair Bolsonaro government that its influence has resounded loudly in Brasília.
Several elements are behind the genesis of the organization which, six years later, would lead to the presidential election of a back bench federal deputy who was starting to align himself with the fastest-growing religious segment in the country, the evangelicals – and with whom the president of ANAJURE, Uziel Santana, 43, from Sergipe, met in late October at the Planalto Palace.
The fact that the association was launched in a Chamber of Deputies auditorium is not mere coincidence, nor are the guests there. The association, which expects to include 700 members, has begun a trajectory that is entangled with the evangelical rise in Brazilian politics.
From there, evangelical honorees emerged who years later would join the Bolsonarist platoon: Senator Magno Malta, who would ultimately be pushed aside by the President, federal Deputy Arolde de Oliveira, then elected Senator together with Flávio Bolsonaro and a victim of Covid-19 in October, and a pastor who worked as legal advisor in Congress: “Dr. Damares Alves, for her tireless fight in favor of the indigenous people in risk situations,” according to an ANAJURE record.
At the invitation of the Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights, the evangelical jurists prepared a basic text for the National Human Rights Plan. She even filled one of the organization’s directorates in its early years. “Damares is our friend, but she is not the founder of ANAJURE, that was fake news”, said Santana. “She is an activist, and ANAJURE is not like that”.
Santana seeks to distance himself from the Bolsonarist ideological wing which includes Damares and ricochets onto ANAJURE. He stresses the positive cooperation with the Dilma administration, for instance. “The main clash was with Gilberto Carvalho, whom I admire. But he put all evangelicals in the same boat when he criticized them saying that he needed to reduce this power that was being born. Somehow he was right, he was referring to the Neopentecostals, but he forgot that there are many who are not like that”.
He is referring to a statement by Carvalho at the World Social Forum in 2012. Secretary General of Dilma’s presidency, he advocated an ideological dispute to curb “the hegemony of the evangelical churches, the Pentecostal sects that are the great presence [in the periphery]”. Then he apologized.
A professor at Mackenzie University and a Presbyterian like the institution, Santana describes ANAJURE as social democrat in economics and conservative in customs. “In politics it’s hard to say: we’re right-wing. I know that we are not this radical right-wing out there. Nor the radical left-wing that is now out of power”.
However, the moral agenda guarantees an affinity with “this radical right-wing out there”. And a good part of ANAJURE’s lobbying in the federal capital is related to it. Hence the expectation, Santana says, for the “jurist who would meet our aspirations” pledged by Bolsonaro for the STF (Federal Supreme Court). The first available position was taken by Kassio Nunes, to the chagrin of conservative circles.
The three names that Santana would like to see on the Court took part in an ANAJURE conference on October 29th: the ex-Minister of Justice Sérgio Moro, excluded once and for all after a clash with Bolsonaro, André Mendonça, today the head of the Ministry, and a federal prosecutor José Eduardo Sabo Paes.
People close to ANAJURE say that Santana’s meeting with Bolsonaro would be a step following the broken promise to place a “terribly evangelical” name in the STF – Mendonça and Paes both qualify.
The attorney claims that they didn’t even broach the subject. However, he didn’t shy away from saying what he thinks of the highest court in Brazil: “We don’t agree that the STF should decide on moral standards in a ruling by 11 people.” He is referring to abortion or LGBTI cases, judicial issues in which ANAJURE is active.
The organization is amicus curiae (a friend of the court, invited to opine in a case being judged) in 17 STF lawsuits, ranging from the fight against homophobic bullying in the National Education Plan to the dismissal of an Adventist teacher who would not work on Saturdays.
In 2019, ANAJURE both criticized and praised the STF decision to include homophobia and transphobia in the same category of crimes as racism.
For the organization, it was positive that Justices secured religious leaders the right to preach what they think about the issue, such as saying that homosexuality is a sin, as long as not openly inciting hatred, like advocating someone’s death.
For Santana, sexual orientation is always an option. “I understand that you are blonde, myself, I am darker. Now, if I’m homosexual, and you are straight, one can argue predisposition, but the fact is that when you reach maturity you make choices. I can’t dye my skin white.”
However, according to ANAJURE, it was wrong for the STF to set aside “the conscientious objection of individuals” – a person having legal grounds to refuse a service or product that runs counter to their faith.
About Bolsonaro, Santana shows affection (“he means well”), but not unconditional loyalty. He criticizes “the most fanatical supporters, the ideological wing, those who cannot see any mistake in the government” and says that “there are things there that are not conservatism, but authoritarianism.”
With Marco Feliciano, the animosity went public. In 2013, he was elected president of the Chamber’s Human Rights Commission under heavy artillery from groups that saw racism and homophobia in his statements.
Feliciano turned to ANAJURE for support. Santana turned his back on him through a note in which he lamented his efforts to “drag society and the press against the evangelicals by promoting and taking part in a crazy ‘holy war’ for being intolerant toward the intolerant.”
The two made peace recently, in a meeting mediated by Silas Câmara, leader of the evangelical group, who said: “We have cleared up our differences, we are at PEACE!”