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André Moz Caldas, Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, revealed, in an interview that he highlighted on his Facebook page, that he was the first member of the Government married to a person of the same sex.
“I don’t make this a special public fanfare, but I also don’t feel like it’s just an aspect of my personal life. And I hope that this can mean, for the young Portuguese, that they are not ostracized. If there is a young man who, with my example, can feel more free to openly live his sexual orientation, he would be very happy, “said the governor, in the interview he gave to the interview in the autumn edition of the Lisbon University Magazine .
André Caldas considers that, because he is from Lisbon, and “from a progressive social and family context”, his experience does not compare with that of “other homosexual people”.
“I never felt victimized by my sexual orientation, but I am aware that, being from Lisbon and from a progressive social and family context, my experience is not comparable to that of other homosexual people. We cannot afford to be victimized, and we must disarm our opponents by openly experiencing sexuality. No one can demean me because of my sexual orientation, because I don’t admit it. If someone degrades me, I cannot feel diminished, I feel, on the contrary, that the other is diminished ”, he said.
“As a society, we have to 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 have to have great energy to give them permanent respect ”, he also defended.
André Moz Caldas, who is also Mário Centeno’s former chief of staff at the Ministry of Finance, a position he has accumulated with the presidency of the Parish Council of Alvalade, also spoke of the growth of the extreme right in Portugal, considering that this “appeals to what more basic that exists in people ”, since“ a sophisticated and rational argument requires much more effort and energy expenditure ”.
“We have to build a participatory, democratic and free civil society, capable of holding, with elevation and serenity, the debates that matter to the country and the world. We cannot continue to have more space for television debate on football than on what really affects people’s lives, “he said.
It should be noted that André Moz Caldas is the first member of a Government in Portugal to assume that he is married to a person of the same sex, but he is not the first to speak of his homosexuality. In 2017, the then Secretary of State for Administrative Modernization and current Minister of Culture, Graça Fonseca, also revealed that he was homosexual. A statement he called a “political statement” to help “change mindsets.”
