Evangelical bench has its biggest action with PL of Fake News – 02/05/2023 – Politics

Deputy Marco Feliciano (PL-SP) said he had a feeling of mission accomplished, even without knowing at that point whether the Fake News PL would be voted on, approved, rejected or postponed in the Chamber. “We did our part to help bury the PL da Censura”, he said, in reference to the most popular nickname, among conservative peers, for bill 2630/2020, the alleged legislative antidote to misinformation.

“I believe that the PL is already dead, we just need to close the coffin!”, anticipated the parliamentarian and pastor. “They widened the scope of the gag. Imagine leaving the authorization to say what is or is not fake news in the hands of Lula’s misgovernment. That would be collective suicide. The intention of the project may even be good, but with good intentions, as popular wisdom said , hell is full.”

His confidence in the failure of the PL mirrored the sense of victory of the evangelical group in what was their first major articulation since Lula (PT) returned to the Presidency. Regardless of the result, the opposition of this bloc was considered one of the biggest obstacles to the proposal being discussed in the Chamber.

The reaction updates the rebound in churches to another bill, 122, presented in Lula’s first term with the aim of criminalizing homophobia. Also there, Christian congressmen stated that “the measure would suppress the religious freedom to believe and disclose that relationships outside the heteronormative pattern would be a sin”, recalls political scientist Vinicius do Valle, director of the Evangelical Observatory.

Filed years later in the Senate, the text contributed to the stirring up of tempers between the left and the right that would fall in the lap of Jair Bolsonaro (PL). “Part [dos pastores] argued that the PL would open loopholes or create legal fights that could restrict the churches “, says Valle. ′′ It’s the same dispute grammar, only now we’re dealing with the regulation of digital platforms.”

Feliciano himself credits his first election, in 2010, to the ideological dispute that took place after PL 122. In the following years, the same cultural war, in new variants, permeated the political fabric.

Rapporteur of the current text, Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP) even said that he removed “with conviction” all the passages that could be misinterpreted by evangelical parliamentarians. He presented a review citing the “free exercise of expression and religious cults” and the “full exposition of their dogmas and sacred books”.

He hoped to resolve resistance in the block with the retreat. Part of the parliamentarians even gave in, but ill will still spoke louder. See note released on Tuesday (2) by the Evangelical Parliamentary Front, together with others of lesser expression in Brasília, such as the Catholic and anti-abortion.

The text classified as undemocratic the use of “socially sensitive events”, such as attacks on schools and abuses against minors on networks, “to make fundamental rights more flexible, such as freedom of expression and religion”.

Baptist Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos-PR), a former Lava Jato prosecutor who in 2023 joined the evangelical bench, was one of those who initially distrusted the PL. He went to Twitter to say that “the faith will be censored if we don’t prevent the approval of the Censorship PL”, this when the content had not yet been changed to make concessions to religious people.

Deltan reposted, at the time, a message that Orlando Silva later classified as fake news: that, if approved, the PL would encourage social networks to banish biblical verses that could be read as prejudiced. Is the passage from Ephesians that commands women to be subject to their husbands gender discrimination? Or would the passage from Leviticus that suggests lethal punishment for the man who lies with another man gain an anti-LGBTQIA+ label?

A Sheet the deputy says that the initial version of the wording had “vague definitions” that would threaten to authorize a government, whether from the right or from the left, to “corrode freedom of expression”.

For him, the new text improved, but still had specific problems, such as treating in a generic way what can be classified as homophobia —something that is said to be contrary, making the caveat that “there are interpretations [sobre o que é homofóbico] that seem abusive”.

Deltan forwarded a news article about the actor who denounced a priest for saying phrases like “the devil is entering people’s homes in different ways to destroy families in the representation of the union of people of the same sex”.

“I’ve seen pastors sued for defending texts that are in the Bible. Whether you agree or not, this is curtailing a religious activity that is at the base of Western culture. It seems like an undue violation of religious freedom.”

Dissenting voices are dwarfed among the evangelical leadership in Congress. Some sought to make themselves heard this Tuesday in Brasilia, with a minority movement in the segment that has the support of progressive evangelicalism enthusiasts, such as Paula Lavigne.

Bishop Marisa de Freitas, a Methodist who was part of the delegation, says that the Fake News PL “meets faith and citizenship concerns related to the need for accountability in what is disclosed and in the way it is done”. It makes no sense, in his view, that digital media do not account for content that gives them so many billions of reais in profit.

“What is being asked is not curtailment of the great right to freedom of expression. What can be done is that there be due compensation for the use of platforms that pose risks to life, to the safety of more vulnerable groups, especially children and adolescents, to democracy so hard won.”

For Marisa, it is important to stress that, in a secular country, “temporary power does not correspond to the power of God for the life of those who believe in Him”. This State, which respects all beliefs, without imposing one over the other, cannot “prevent the faith and its principles from being manifested”, she says.

“But professing the faith”, she ponders, “does not imply attacking, exterminating, punishing or belittling anyone who thinks differently”. There would be nothing to fear, therefore, who does not incur this sin.