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The Secretary of State of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of the current Portuguese Government, André Moz Caldas, revealed in an interview with the Revista da Universidade de Lisboa that it is “The first member of the Government married to a person of the same sex” in the history of the Portuguese Republic. And he argued that by not doing this “special public fanfare”, it is important that “public people live their homosexuality naturally” to normalize this sexual orientation and combat homophobia and prejudice. The interview was shared by the Secretary of State himself on his Facebook account, through a publication open to visitors.
The member of the current Government, who is also a visiting assistant at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, made the statement after being asked about homosexuality still being considered a crime in 70 countries, about homophobia that still persists and about the best shape. to “fight prejudice”. And he answered the following:
I don’t know exactly why homophobia exists. I think it is a yoke from which society will free itself, but there is still a long way to go. What can we do? Public people live their homosexuality naturally. I am the first member of the government married to a person of the same sex. and I don’t make it into a special public fanfare, but I don’t feel like it’s just one aspect of my personal life, “he said.
Continuing in response, André Moz Caldas also said: “I hope that this can mean, for young Portuguese people, that they are not ostracized. If there is a young man who, by my example, can feel more free to live his sexual orientation openly, he would be very happy.“.
Referring to not having “never felt victimized” in relation to sexual orientation, the Secretary of State assumed that “being from Lisbon and from a progressive social and family context”, his “experience is not comparable to that of other homosexual people”. But then he added: “We cannot afford to be victimized and we must disarm our opponents by living sexuality openly. No one can demean me because of my sexual orientation, because I don’t admit it. If someone degrades me, I cannot feel diminished, on the contrary, I feel that the other is diminished ”.
As a society, we must realize that there is diversity and that people are not diminished by belonging to a minority, whether sexual or otherwise. And those who belong to a minority must have a lot of energy to give him permanent respect ”, concluded the government official.
In the interview, André Moz Caldas, who has held other public functions in the past, was president of the board of directors of OPART, chief of staff of the former Minister of Finance Mário Centeno, president of the Parish Council of Alvalade in Lisbon, and member of the Council General of the University of Lisbon – he addressed other topics, such as his career as a student, the functions of Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the importance of music in his life and the tendency to growth of extreme -right movements all over the world. The full interview can be read here.
Gay marriage was approved in Portugal in 2010, during the second government of José Sócrates. At that time, the bill that legalized same-sex marriage was approved in the Assembly of the Republic with favorable votes from the Socialist Party (although with two votes against two independent deputies), from the Bloco de Esquerda, from the Communist Party. Portuguese and the Ecologist Party Os Verdes.
The proposal at that time opposition from the CDS and the majority of the PSD parliamentary bench, but seven Social Democratic deputies used the freedom to vote to abstain. Instead, the PSD had proposed a new civil union between people of the same sex that was not designated as marriage. However, neither party has since expressed willingness or willingness to reverse the legalization of same-sex marriage.
More recently, in 2015, Parliament approved the removal of legal obstacles to the adoption of children by same-sex couples, that is, adoption by homosexual couples. The diploma was voted in the Assembly of the Republic and in the stands of the PS and PSD, for example, the deputies were given freedom to vote. Only two deputies abstained (Isabel Oneto, from the PS, and Duarte Marques, from the PSD), 19 deputies from the PSD voted in favor of gay adoption and the rest against.
Approval of homosexual adoption. 19 PSD deputies voted in favor
André Moz Caldas is the second member of a Portuguese government to reveal that he is homosexual during an interview while serving in government functions. In 2017, in an interview with the newspaper Diário de Notícias, the then Secretary of State for Administrative Modernization – now the Minister of Culture -, Graça Fonseca, revealed that she was homosexual. It was the first time in Portugal that a member of a government did so.
In the interview in which you assumed your sexual orientation, Graça Fonseca He argued that it was important “to normalize the existence of same-sex couples and homosexuality” and “for people to publicly declare that they are homosexual.” And he explained why: “If people start looking at politicians, people in the cinema, athletes, knowing that they are homosexual, as is my case, this could cause that the next time there is a news story about people killed for being gay [as pessoas] think of someone you even feel sympathy for. “
Like Portugal, where Graça Fonseca is Minister of Culture, other European countries also have ministers who openly accept homosexuality. This is the case of Finland, which has the Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto, of Germany, which has Jens Spahn as its Minister of Health (married to a person of the same sex) and Iceland, which has as Minister of Environment and Resources Natural to Guðmundur. Ingi Guðbrandsson.
Also the governments of the Netherlands, which have the Minister of the Interior Kajsa Ollongren (married to a person of the same sex and with two children), Norway, whose Minister of Health is Bent Høie (married to a person of the same sex ) and Spain. , whose Interior Minister is Fernando Grande-Marlaska (married to a person of the same sex), they have LGBT ministers. In Belgium, the current government of the country includes a transsexual minister, Petra De Sutter.
In Europe, some countries have even been openly LGBT ruling prime ministers. This is the case of Norway (which had, for a brief period, Per-Kristian Foss as Prime Minister), Iceland (which had Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir as Prime Minister between 2009 and 2013), Belgium (Elio Di Rupo, Prime Minister between 2011 and 2014). , Luxembourg (which has Xavier Bettel at the head of the Government since 2013), Ireland (Leo Varadkar, between 2017 and 2020) and Serbia, which has Ana Brnabić as Prime Minister since 2017.
The case of Mesquita Nunes: “My positions are not determined by sexual orientation”
In addition to André Moz Caldas and Graça Fonseca, there is a third politician who performed government functions in Portugal who publicly assumed homosexuality: Adolfo Mesquita Nunes. The former Secretary of State for Tourism of a PSD-CDS coalition government, led by Pedro Passos Coelho, did so in February 2018 and in an interview with the weekly Expresso, although he already did so after leaving the Government.
The then vice president of the CDS, Adolfo Mesquita Nunes gave a life interview in which he recalled an episode that occurred during the municipal elections, when he was the centrists’ candidate for the presidency of the Covilhã Chamber. One of their posters had been vandalized with the inscription of the word “gay” and Mesquita Nunes asked the campaign team not to withdraw the word, as it was not false.
The day after the interview, then-party leader Assunção Cristas said he was very “proud” to have Mesquita Nunes, “one of Portugal’s most notable political thinkers,” as its vice president. And the centrist and liberal politician has repeatedly emphasized since then that his political intervention cannot be reduced, diminished or conditioned in analysis by sexual orientation. “I like to think that my most liberal positions are not determined by sexual orientation, that they are rather rooted in an ethical and political attachment to the value of freedom,” he continued.
The future of the right. The liberal CDS of Adolfo against the conservative CDS “Chicão”
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