AGU asks STF to clarify whether criminalizing homophobia affects religious freedom | Politics

AGU wants to know if the measure reaches

• religious freedom;
• the dissemination in academic, media or professional media of each and every one of the considerations on the ways of exercising sexuality;
• control access to certain places open to the public (such as bathrooms, changing rooms, public transport);
• and objections based on philosophical or political convictions.

In June of last year, the Supreme Court compared acts of homophobia and transphobia with the crime of racism, recognizing the inability of the National Congress to criminalize acts that violate the fundamental rights of members of the LGBT community.

According to the decision of the STF, those who practice, induce or incite discrimination based on the sexual orientation of the other can be sentenced to three years in prison and a fine, a penalty for the crime of racism, which can reach up to five years if they still exist. dissemination of the homophobic act on the internet, for example. The decision is valid until Congress passes a law on the subject.

According to AGU, the protection of citizens identified with the LGBTI + group cannot criminalize the disclosure of each and every one of the considerations on the ways of exercising sexuality.

“Just as reflection on the habits of predominant sexuality must be guaranteed, it is also necessary to ensure the freedom to consider alternative sexual morals, without fear of understanding that such manifestations incite discrimination,” says the appeal.

The government says the Supreme Court must make clear whether the social concept of racism can justify the attribution of criminal responsibility to any type of comment that reveals unacceptable intolerance.

For AGU, “it is important to clarify, as a thesis of judgment, that not only religious freedom, but also freedom of expression, considered generically (encompassing artistic, scientific or professional expression), supports the possibility of non-degrading manifestation of morals sexual ”.

“No one doubts that tolerance is one of the main normative pillars of the 1988 Constitution, and that the decision now [criminalização da homofobia] makes a forceful and due defense of this libertarian tone of the constitutional text. But of course this cannot be done at the expense of other relevant freedoms. As long as it does not become a derogatory adjective, aimed at injurious disqualification, it is perfectly possible that sexual morality is valued in different areas of intellectual expression, ”wrote the attorney general of the Union, José Levi.

The appeal establishes that the refusal to accept or the exclusion of a person whose behavior is considered “seriously inappropriate” for a certain religious philosophy cannot be treated, a priori, as an act of racism, but as part of the exercise of religious freedom.

According to the appeal, the intention is to make clear that, “in addition to the right to preach, spread, express doctrine and practice acts of worship and liturgy, religious freedom may or may not include the exclusion of persons whose behavior is ostensibly detrimental to the codes of conduct required by the fundamental principles of religious orders ”.

“Although religions in general pursue and value the ideals of respect, tolerance and acceptance of others, religious doctrines usually establish sanctions for behaviors considered critically incompatible with established dogmas, foreseeing consequences that can lead to exclusion from the congregation, the ministry or acts of communion ”, says the text.