Evangelical caucus targets Lula’s actions on gender and race – 04/11/2023 – Power

One of the most powerful groups in Congress, the Evangelical Parliamentary Front, is campaigning against a list of affirmative norms edited by the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government, including the one that instituted the gender and race equity program in the SUS and the who created a group to face discrimination against religions of African origin.

A Sheet had access to the list drawn up by the bench, which was taken last week to the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), and to the leader of the government in the House, José Guimarães (PT-CE).

In general terms, the deputies who lead the front say they consider that the government is usurping the role of Congress in legislating on these issues, in addition to seeing in the norms what they call “gender ideology” —a term coined by right-wing religious groups to attack actions in defense of the LGBTQIA+ community.

At the top of the index prepared by the bench is Ordinance 230/2023 of the Ministry of Health, which established the National Program for Gender Equity, Race and Valorization of Female Workers in the SUS (Unified Health System).

The ordinance, launched on the eve of International Women’s Day (March 8), establishes, among other guidelines, “to promote gender and race equity in the Unified Health System, seeking to modify the sexist and racist structures that operate in the division of labor in the health”.

The ordinance attracted the ire of evangelicals mainly for containing, in its annex, guidelines such as “confronting cultural machismo, forms of misogyny, sexism, ethnic-racial, religious, generational discrimination, sexual orientation and gender identity or any other forms of prejudice”; and the “inclusion of the theme of sexual orientation and gender identity in the permanent education processes developed by the SUS”.

“That [a portaria], for me, is the most serious, because it leaves open, what never existed in an ordinance, the issue of gender ideology. She put the entire framework of gender ideology in the annexes, and then I think this is very serious”, says deputy Sóstenes Cavalcante (PL-RJ).

“It sets a precedent and has public funding in the training of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, the entire health area with SUS money for this type of public policy”, he adds.

Sóstenes presided over the evangelical front in 2022 and is currently the second vice president of the Chamber.

He also said that, at the meeting, the government leader was surprised by the extinction of Senapred (National Secretariat for Care and Prevention of Drugs).

Guimarães would have stated at the time that he was unaware of this act, adding that parliamentary amendments were intended for therapeutic communities affiliated with Senapred, whose reception is generally based on isolation, abstinence and religiosity.

After pressure from evangelical sectors, the Lula government created the Department of Support for Therapeutic Communities, although the government says the model is under review.

Another flank of attack by evangelicals is against the creation, by decree, of an inter-ministerial group to elaborate policies to confront discrimination against religions of African origin.

“We respect all religions and we want all religions to be respected. However, we cannot make an action of one religion to the detriment of another. to the detriment of one another”, says the current president of the front, deputy Eli Borges (PL-TO).

In addition to the ordinance and the decree, the document delivered by the bench to Lira and Guimarães contains 11 other norms issued by the government in March, with the title “decrees with gender”.

Among them are: 1) the one that instituted the working group for the elaboration of the National Program of Affirmative Actions; 2) which creates a quota for blacks to fill commissioned positions in the federal machine; 3) establishing the Woman Living Without Violence Program; 4) and the one that establishes procedures for access to the Yanomami Indigenous Land —which contains the prohibition of “the exercise of any religious activities with indigenous peoples”.

Eli Borges claims that there are positive and negative points in all these measures, but that they should be dealt with by Congress, not by rules edited by the government without the participation of the Legislature.

“When we look at the list of decrees by President Lula and the decrees that come from ministries, we realize that he is making a Herculean effort to govern through decrees and decrees, without respecting the Legislative Power. Part of these decrees has the policy that we we disagree with it. The affirmative policy, which has to be born from Parliament”, says the deputy.

The evangelical bench brings together more than 100 of the 513 deputies of the Chamber and, historically, has positioned itself as an opponent of left-wing parties.

In 2015, for example, the bench was one of the main drivers of the so-called “gay kit”, a fake news that spread in the first administration of Dilma Rousseff (2010-2014).

Parliamentarians and religious groups claimed at the time that the PT government was distributing pornographic material to elementary school children.

In fact, the kit, at the time under analysis by the Ministry of Education, was aimed at teachers and high school students and was part of the Escola Sem Homofobia program, whose objective was to combat prejudice in schools.

Prepared by NGOs contracted through an agreement and after being charged by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, the material included a notebook aimed at managers, newsletters for students and videos.

Jair Bolsonaro (PL) was one of the politicians who stimulated false news about the kit, having gained national recognition from that case, as he himself stated in several subsequent news stories. In his government, he had broad support from evangelicals.

The Lula government is approved by 38% of the Brazilian population at the beginning of his administration, but among evangelicals this percentage drops to 28%, as shown by the most recent survey by Datafolha.

Ministries say standards are urgent and fundamental

When contacted, Lira and Guimarães did not comment.

In a note, the Ministry of Health stated that the manifestations of the evangelical bench against the ordinance of the gender and race equity program in the SUS represent a “disservice and disrespect to the Brazilian population”.

“Currently, women represent the majority of the workforce in the health sectors. In the public network alone, there are more than 2.1 million women, which represents 74% of the workforce in the SUS. The actions foreseen by the program will expand the necessary conditions for the practice of equity”, says the folder.

The Ministry of Racial Equality states that it is necessary “to present a solution for the growing cases of invasions of Candomblé, Umbanda and other religions of African origin”.

According to data sent by the folder, from 2015 to 2018, 3,288 cases of religious racism were registered, “not to mention the homicides (six, in 2016 in Pará) and the expulsion of religious leaders from favelas and peripheral neighborhoods have not been accounted for”.

“The decree is necessary at this moment. It does not prevent, in any way, that the matter is the focus of discussion in the National Congress from the society. We even believe that in the future the Brazilian state may approve a bill that promotes mechanisms to combat religious racism and promote freedom of beliefs and religions in Brazil.”