Bolsonaro declares that Brazil should not become ‘gay tourism paradise’
Brazil’s far-right president, the self-declared homophobe Jair Bolsonaro, has been accused of inciting hatred towards LGBT people after declaring the South American country should not become a “gay tourism paradise”.
“Brazil can’t be a country of the gay world, of gay tourism. We have families,” he added.
Mr Bolsonaro has already drawn ire for being a self-described “homophobic”.
He reportedly made his latest comments at a breakfast meeting with reporters in the country’s capital Brasília.
“If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life,” Bolsonaro reportedly told journalists in the capital, Brasília. “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,” Bolsonaro added, according to the Brazilian magazine Exame.
The comments – made during a breakfast meeting with Brazilian reporters – sparked an immediate reaction from LGBT campaigners.
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 6 or 7, watching two men kiss as if the government wanted them to do. Is this democracy?”