Photo by Peter Hershey on Unsplash
A Brazilian federal judge approved gay conversion therapy.
Recently, Waldemar de Carvalho overruled a 1999 decision that forbade psychologists from offering gay conversion therapy. At the time, the practice had been widely discredited and proven to be harmful.
De Carvalho ruled this way to support Rozangela Justino who was an evangelical Christian psychologist. Justino had lost her license back in 2016 after offering conversion therapy and then took the situation to court.
In a 2009 interview, Justino said that homosexuality was a disease and said, “I feel directed by God to help people who are homosexual.”
However, Rogério Giannini, the president of the Federal Council of Psychology which helped to ban conversion therapy in the first place, told the Guardian that, “There is no way to cure what is not a disease. It is not a serious, academic debate, it is a debate connected to religious or conservative positions.”
As you would imagine, this decision has sparked outraged among many people in the country. Some include politicians, celebrities, and of course everyday people as well.
“This decision is a big regression to the progressive conquests that the LBGT community had in recent decades,” David Miranda, one of Brazil’s openly gay politicians, said to the Guardian. “Like various countries in the world, Brazil is suffering a conservative wave.”
Brazlian singer Ivete Sangolo also spoke out against the new ruling. Part of her Instagram post, shared below, says, “The sick ones are those who believe in this grand absurdity.”
And, several people have been using the #curagay to express their anger at this new ruling.
