A atuação política pentecostal em confronto com o movimento LGBT no Brasil redemocratizado

Abstract

Modernity has taken the centrality of religion from social and political life. The establishment of the republic in 1889 legally separated the Roman Catholic Church from the Brazilian State. Still, churches and religious groups maintain a claim for his role in the definition of public laws and policies in the Brazilian State. With the end of military dictatorship in the 1980s and the increasing political participation of different social groups and also the population growth of Pentecostals, this group became part of party politics and elected parliamentarians. They also mobilize support for presidential candidates. The objective of this thesis was to map the performance of the Pentecostals in Brazilian party politics from 2003 to 2014. For that purpose, press materials, internet, as well as interviews recorded with parliamentarians and advisors within the National Congress were analyzed. The results suggest that Pentecostal parliamentarians seek to transport their religious doctrines to the Brazilian population as a whole by proposing changes in legislation regarding behavioral issues. The discourses about justification/defense or rejection of the relationship between religion and politics have, in their essence, a dispute over the claim for a traditional (heterosexual) model of Christian family. The struggle to reject the criminalization of homophobia revealed an important issue for the group during the period under investigation, especially considering the argument that approving this law could criminalize their biblical preaching and condemnation against homosexuality, thereby restricting their freedom of religion and expression. In this sense, the discourses found in the 1980s, a period of Pentecostal insertion in politics, is resignified assuming the LGBT movement as a constrainer for its freedom of expression.