I had to go through the glass door to understand what it was like to be on the other side.
In the small town where I was visiting some relatives, I was accompanying my mother walking through the shops on the promenade, near the square and Igreja Matriz, when I saw from afar the boys leaving the school.
As a group, they fired curses at the shop where my mother was cared for by a boy a little older than me. He was the target of ridicule.
“Fag, fag,” the boys shouted, mimicking female voices.
“Every single day is like that,” the guard explained.
I had to be on this side to understand what he was feeling: a mixture of shame and fear of what these children might do when they grew up.
If I lived there and studied at this school, I would probably be in this class and never know what is going on in this store.
Yes, up to that point I was just walking around outside doing similar, if not worse, things as if I had to behave this way to gain the respect of the “boys” at school (read: to avoid getting hit).
I can’t remember how old I was. Fifteen? Sixteen?
I never quite got rid of the prejudices I was anchored in since birth. These prejudices crop up sometimes, and adult life hasn’t rid me of them. Especially when I tell my son to “stand up” at the slightest sign of weakness.
But I never forgot that episode. He showed me how homophobia hurts, even if it just seems like a joke that everyone plays to prove they’re a man.
As the son of a catechist and raised in the church, I left this shop with no doubt as to which side Christ would be on if he lived among us. Even my mother had no doubts.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” says Matthew chapter 11, verse 28.
I never stopped praying for this boy and for all his friends who one day had to leave their place of origin to avoid being stoned by those who thought they were sick or sinners.
As far as I can remember, I can’t remember a single moment when I heard the word “hate” during a celebration. On the other hand. Growing up I heard that God is love.
And that down here we had a duty to love. Because love comes from God and everything that loves is born of God. “Anyone who does not love does not know God,” says the hymn, quoting 1 John 4:8.
That’s why the words of a religious leader during a service in Orlando, USA, who incited evangelicals to kill LGBTQIA+ people sound so unbelievable.
The incitement is not even veiled. André Valadão, in a cursory argument, says that a “door” opened when samesex marriage was tolerated and normalized by society. That door, he said, has now resulted in men and women in LGBTGIA+ parades being “displayed naked with their genitals in front of children.” (A scene that of course only exists in the mind of the pastor.)
“That door was opened when we came to accept as normal what the Bible already condemns,” he said, before arguing that it was time “to take matters into our own hands again.”
In Valadão’s words, God has a deal with humanity and cannot “reset” what he created as he promised in his alliance with the people, whose symbol is a rainbow.
But Valadão guarantees that if God could, “He would kill and start all over again”. However, since this is not possible, the mission now lies with you in this case with the believers. “Let’s go upstairs. Me and my house will serve the Lord,” he said as if facing an army.
The incitement of the people is clear and became the subject of analysis by the Federal Ministry for Public Violence and also of rejection by MPs and famous personalities.
As a coward, Valadão said his statement was taken out of context and blamed the impact of his speech on the mainstream media.
“Killing” in this case does not mean the destruction of people, the pastor assured. He just wanted to say that “it is up to us to teach people the principle of what God’s will is” in this case the killing of those who terrify us, we can hear that more than once to be sure.
The criticism and apparent desire for punishment are all it takes for Valadão to put himself in the shoes of a “martyr” after defending the violence.
Make no mistake: there is no more antiChristian speech than that of a minister when referring to a social group already sufficiently stoned on the false moralism that Christ himself fought against.
After all, it was he who stopped vigilantes of his day from throwing rocks at a woman deemed a “sinner.”
In the Bible, Jesus only shows anger when he sees what the moneylenders were doing in the temple. Otherwise, the message makes it clear that we should love one another, with no asterisks with fine print distinctions at the bottom of the page about anyone.
On his Instagram profile, pastor and theologian Hermes Carvalho Fernandes bluntly said that statements like Valadão’s actually encourage parents to throw gay children out of the house and encourage friends to break off relationships. “For Jesus, that is also killing.”
Fernandes describes those as “messengers of Satan” who “continue to spread hatred against a vulnerable minority, incite parents against children and children against parents, and incite violence, prejudice and discrimination”.
“Jesus, stay away from this filth,” he concluded.
As I said, the friend and pastor Ranieri Costa, collaborator of the UOLA lesson from this episode is that we should not listen to those who preach hatred under the name of God. “There is not a single LGTBQIAPN+ person who is not deeply loved by God,” he wrote.
It is a lesson (which should be fundamental), but one that must be repeated every time numerous false prophets arise, deceiving and misleading so many people in this world of persecution, multiplying evil and letting love grow cold, how described in Matthew. Chapter 24 .
I don’t know Valadão and his character. But I can’t watch her performance and imagine that she’s the complete opposite of everything I’ve been taught, including at home, about God and about love.