Portugal: um imenso código penal...

Gosto da expressão de Daniel Oliveira: Portugal como um imenso Código Penal. Gosto dela porque parece não haver dia em que as senhoras e senhores que o aplicam não sejam, usualmente pelas piores razões, notícia e com isso o país parece viver suspenso entre um episódio e outro. Mais valia que essa obsessão estivesse centrada na telenovela, ou na bola, porque isso seria um sinal, bom, de que o resto funcionava...

Segundo os últimos episódios da trama penal lusitana, ficámos a saber que uma tentativa de corrupção para o juíz tuga afinal só tem de custar ao condenado 5 mil euros e nada de prisão e que na Academia de Polícia sobra em puritanismo o que falta em tento e sensibilidade.

Que país.

De Bag

Ainda o Penn sobre o Milk e homofobia

O trecho mais importante do discurso de Penn agarrado ao Oscar que a sua interpretação de Milk lhe valeu foi aquele em que se referiu à vergonha que os netos terão dos avós. Com graus maiores e menores de gravidade esta situação é verdadeira e e deverá levar um alemão de hoje a interrogar-se sobre os actos dos seus avós, ou um "liberal" sulista americano a perguntar-se se os seus avós protestaram e tentaram impedir aquelas primeiras meninas negras de irem à escola não segregacionista.

Da mesma forma os descendentes de Nogueira Pinto, ou de Salter Cid, ou de Vaz Pato, ou de César das Neves e de tantos outros lhes poderão/deverão um dia perguntar de que lado das barricadas estavam neste último combate pela Igualdade, do lado dela, ou não.

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Ler os outros: Richard Zimmler na revista do JN/DN, excerto abaixo:

A sua relação com Alexandre Quintanilha, que dura há 30 anos, é quase coisa de contos de fadas, não é?

[Risos] Sim, um bocado. Mas também temos problemas; não é perfeito. Mas temos respeito e amor mútuos, que é o mais importante.

 Por que razão, em pleno século XXI, se fala tão pouco de homossexualidade com essa sua abertura?

É uma questão difícil e complicada. Quando eu cresci, o homossexual tinha que ultrapassar os seus próprio preconceitos. Eu entrei em pânico, pensei: “Estou mais interessado em homens do que em mulheres. O que é que isso signfica? Vou ter que mudar a minha personalidade toda? Deixar de gostar dos Beatles e dos Rolling Stones e passar a gostar mais de JudyGarland?” Não tinha modelos de comportamento com quem pudesse testar a minha personalidade. E depois, nem todas as pessoas estão em posição de assumir a sua homossexualidade sem que isso lhes traga repercussões graves e terríveis na vida. Há jovens que se o dissessem aos pais, seriam corridos de casa. E os políticos portugueses se dissessem: “Tenho uma relação com este homem”, não conseguiriam as posições altas que ambicionam.

Acha mesmo que haveria essa relação de causa-efeito?

Não sei. Como ninguém o faz, não podemos saber. A homossexualidade só é assunto porque há preconceito. Caso contrário, seria tão banal como ter olhos azuis ou verdes, ser alto ou baixo. Luto para um dia seja assim.Eu não falo da minha sexualidade po mim; falo dela por causa do jovem que vive em Beja e da rapariga que vive em Vila de Conde. Ambos se sentem frágeis devido á sua sexualidade, não conseguem assumi-la porque estão rodeados de pessoas com preconceitos. Têm que viver atrás de uma máscara. É por causa deles que falo, para que entendam que podem ser felizes, realizados, viver com amor, com paixão, com tudo. E que não têm que mudar. É importante que cada um de nós viva como é.

Mas acha que pos políticos, artistas, etc, poderiam contribuir para a abertura de mentalidades se assumissem a sua orientação sexual com tranquilidade?

Os políticos – e os cozinheiros, os advogados, os escritores, os músicos - poderiam ter um efeito muito positivo sobre a sociedade portuguesa. Se falassem abertamente da sua vida íntima, as pessoas perderiam os tabus, aprenderiam a lidar frontalmente com os problemas, com a violência e as violações sobre crianças, a denunciar os abusos. Os tabus não criam uma sociedade saudável. É preciso muita gente a falar dos seus desejos, dos seus problemas, para receber a solidariedade das pessoas individualmente e da sociedade em geral. Mas não posso dizer que as pessoas têm obrigação de o fazer.

Milk, Sean Penn e o Óscar:

Milk e os amigos

vale a pena ver quem eram os amigos de Milk e por onde é que andam agora.

Para lá

enquanto isso na ONU...

...já se sentirão os efeitos da entrada em cena da equipa Obama, com os EUA a fazerem uma inflexão em relação à proposta de resolução apresentada pela França que condena a discriminação e perseguição de homossexuais no mundo. aparentemente o novo embaixador americano já não se opõe (mais o vaticano, países mulçumanos e outros) a esta iniciativa.

os eua estão um pouco mais próximos de nós.

de bag

Bolívia legisla contra a discriminação

ora aqui está uma notícia que tinha passado despercebida. A nova constituição de Evo Morales institui um princípio de igualdade do qual não estão excluídos os cidadãos lgbts.

de bag

Bush Imperdível...

Imperdível este artigo na Vanity Fair de Fevereiro (sim a da Cate Blanchett) "Farewell to all that" com declarações e entrevistas a inúmeros protagonistas americanos e mundiais sobre a presidência Bush.

Vejam o exemplo abaixo:

While vacationing at his ranch, in Crawford, Texas, Bush is given a Presidential Daily Briefing memorandum whose headline warns that the al - Qaeda terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, is "determined to strike in the US". After being briefed on the document by a CIA analyst, Bush responds, "All right, you've covered your ass now." (6 de Agosto de 2001)


De Bag

Uma interessante recolha de gay related nomeados para os oscares e oscarizados feita pelo Queerty

Sunday Bloody Sunday1971- Best Actor: Peter Finch
John Schlessinger's film about a Jewish doctor (Finch) vying for the affection of Murray Head and in competition with Glenda Jackson for his heart, the film was one of the first to depict gay sex on the screen. The film is notable since it doesn't make a big deal about the character's sexuality, despite how miserable they make each other. It also marks the screen debut of Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays a young hoodlum.

Silkwood1983- Best Supporting Actress: Cher
Sadly, we've wasted hours of our life watching Silkwood, the Meryl Streep vs. The Evil Nuclear Plant ripped-from-the-headlines story by Mike Nichols that hasn't aged that well. Speaking of things that haven't aged well, Cher got her first Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Streep's lesbian roommate.

Kiss of the Spider Woman1985- Best Actor: William Hurt*
Based on the novel by Manuel Puig, Spider Woman tells the story of a gay windowdresser (Hurt) whose imprisoned with a revolutionary (Raul Julia) in an unnamed South American prison. Hurt falls hopelessly in love with his cellmate and escapes from reality by imagining a fantastical Spider Woman. Things don't turn out to well in the long-run as Hurt finds himself betrayed in every way possible, but the film remains a classic of the gay cannon.

Longtime Companion1990- Best Actor: Bruce Davison
Starting off a wave of Oscar-baiting AIDS films, Longtime Companion follows a group of New York gay friends through the plague years of the AIDS epidemic. Relentlessly depressing and criticized for only focusing on white gay men, nonetheless, the film brought the horrors of AIDS to the mainstream.

Philadelphia1993- Best Actor: Tom Hanks
Covering much of the same territory as Longtime Companion, but with Tom Hanks, Philadelphia became the gay movie that everybody saw. Hanks plays a lawyer who believes he was fired once the firm learned he was an HIV-positive gay man, and the story focuses as much on the systemic homophobia of the firm and the world around Hanks as it does his disease.

As Good As It Gets1997- Best Supporting Actor: Greg Kinnear
Here, Greg Kinnear plays a nelly gay artist with an annoying dog who gets treated like crap by Jack Nicholson until he's gay-bashed and Jack feels bad, thus beginning a "perfect strangers" friendship. Unfortunately, As Good As It Gets is not very good, unless you like seeing Greg Kinnear, Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson all try to out-quirky-cute each other.

Gods and Monsters1998- Best Actor: Ian McKellan
Ian McKellan plays James Whale, the gay director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein who falls hard for a hunky Brandon Fraser. Fraser's character is interested in Whale's career, but ultimately he just helps Whale fulfill his own masochistic self-hating desires.

Boys Don't Cry1999- Best Actress: Hillary Swank*
Hillary Swank's portrayal of Brandon Teena, born Teena Brandon, is the first transgender film character ever nominated for an Oscar, though Linda Hunt was nominated for The Year of Living Dangerously for a male role. The film continues the "doomed gay" trend, as Brandon is eventually raped and murdered after her secret is discovered.

Before Night Falls2000- Best Actor: Javier Bardem
Javier Bardem plays gay Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas in Julian Schnabels' moving and arresting film about gay life and politics under Castro's regime. Weirdly, the film makes Cuba seem less like a horribly oppressive homophobic society and more like a great place for picking up hot guys in Speedos.

Monster2003- Best Actress: Charlize Theron*
Charlize Theron nabs the triple-crown of Oscar-bait roles by playing someone who is both gay, ugly and horribly doomed in her role as real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos. A sensitive portrayal of a woman out of options, Theron's performance inspired actresses to dress down to get a leg up in the Academy race.

Capote2005- Best Actor: Phillip Seymour Hoffman*
Despite a mesmerizing impersonation of the fabulously nebbish Truman Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman couldn't save Capote from being a listless exercise in precious, precious simonizing. The Academy disagreed and gave Hoffman the Oscar over that year's other gay character nominee.

Brokeback Mountain2005- Best Actor: Heath Ledger
We wouldn't mind Hoffman's win so much if it hadn't deprived Heath Ledger from a much-deserved win for that "gay cowboy movie," Brokeback Mountain. An iconic, star-making performance, Ledger's portrayal of Ennis Del Mar opened the door to big-screen roles like The Joker, for which he is posthumously nominated this year.

Ler os Outros: "A Progressive Manifesto", David Bodanis, in Prospect

Um curto ensaio sobre os 10 Mandamentos com uma opinião original e, por ventura, muito mais correcta quer do que que a de Hitchens, quer do que a de pessoas como o Cardeal Saraiva Martins:

I am a fan of Christopher Hitchens. There's that delightful disdain with which he impales his opponents, his flashing wit—and the hints of seriousness to show that it's all more than just a jousting game.

But sometimes he gets things very wrong, and his attitude to the ten commandments—one he shares with many modern atheists—is one such mistake. They represent little more, he argues, than the rantings of an angry, vain and vengeful God. Who would possibly want to follow their "vague pre-Christian desert morality," which shows every sign of being invented by a "Bronze Age demagogue"?

Martin Luther King, for one. He found great power in the commandments and the entire Exodus story. By extension, then, they motivated many people in the struggle for civil rights, and helped to transform the US at a crucial moment in its history.

Hitchens is responding to the mythical story of the commandments found in the standard religious accounts: the Koran and the old testament. But if he looked at them as a historian or an anthropologist, he might take a more sympathetic view of this extraordinary list—which has bequeathed to us the weekend, the principle of innocent until proved guilty, the Sunni/Shia split and much else besides.

Moses, of course, dominates the biblical account. On Mount Sinai, amid storms and booming trumpet blasts, it's he who brings down the perfect tablets, direct from God. Yet this is not the sole source of understanding of the commandments' power. Something quite extraordinary was also happening in real political history at the time. Clues scattered in the Bible, archaeological digs and other sources show that the commandments, at least at the beginning, were quite unlike anything a Bronze Age demagogue would have proposed. They weren't designed to keep a people in servile, superstitious passivity. In fact, they were a progressive creed: helping a band of escaping refugees to find freedom in a new land.

***

The story of the Israelites begins sometime between 1250 and 1150BC. At the start of that period, the ancient near east was little more than a giant prison house. Along the eastern Mediterranean coast, most people struggled as serfs, tied to the city-states that dominated the region. Further west, in the great kingdom of Egypt, serfdom was also widespread—and slavery was as harsh as described in the book of Exodus.

Some of these slaves were Semitic-speakers from Canaan (around modern Israel) who had emigrated as free men to the lush Egyptian delta, only to be enslaved. Others were Libyan sand-dwellers or black-skinned Nubians, often taken prisoner in wartime. Egypt's rulers had built a vast series of forts on their eastern borders, not just to defend the kingdom from attack, but also to keep these slaves in.

Egypt had divided the eastern Mediterranean with the kingdom of the Hittites (based in modern Turkey), and a flourishing buffer zone existed between them. This system had survived for centuries, and neither the serfs stuck in the city-states nor the slaves in Egypt stood much chance of escape.

Then, in the decades leading up to 1200BC, a series of changes unpicked this easy imperial détente, and began to destroy the structures that had kept these forced workers trapped for generations. At the northern limit of the known world, cities in ancient Greece began to be destroyed, swamped by mysterious attackers who came to be known as the "Sea peoples." No one knows precisely who they were. Some were probably displaced tribesmen from the north of Greece, others pre-existing pirates, others new recruits, joining when their cities were destroyed. But the impact of these raids was rapidly felt. Shortages in everything from food to dock equipment leapfrogged across the Mediterranean. Hunger, starvation and social unrest followed.

Eventually the Sea peoples reached Egypt. Their attacks beat back the imperial army, which abandoned its frontier forts. For the first time in memory, Egypt's borders were scarcely defended. This turmoil left open a window that any slave group, with the right leader, could slip through.How do we know that some escapees in this period were ancestors of the historical Hebrews? There is some suggestive evidence; and the Bible itself is a source. The famous story of the escaping Israelites passing through the Red sea is not the only account recorded in the Bible. Hidden away, an earlier, more plausible story exists, long missed in English translations. To find it, you need to know that the Old Testament is written in "ordinary" Hebrew; a few sections, however, are composed in more archaic language. To the trained eye, these sections are as different as Chaucer and Hemingway.

The archaic version says nothing about walls of water. Indeed, it says nothing about crossing a body of water at all. Instead, it suggests a story in which Egyptian soldiers, chasing after escaping slaves, ventured into the water on barges to catch them, and were flipped over in waves, or perhaps found their chariot wheels bogged down in marsh. Such accounts could easily have been distorted by centuries of retelling.

Later translations into Latin and vernacular languages—as with the King James translations of the early 1600s—make these exaggerations yet more extreme, translating the Hebrew yam sûp as "Red sea." The Red sea is a vast body of water, and a long way from the main cities that housed Semitic-speaking slaves. On the other hand, there really were many marshy wetlands and shallow reed-filled lakes nearer these cities, all with their own sudden currents and treacherous mudflats. The Hebrew yam sûp is much more likely to mean simply "sea of reeds."

But even if a handful of slaves did escape, where would they go? Across the Sinai desert rose the forested highlands of Canaan, a perfect refuge from authority (and where some of them had probably originally come from). In this violent period around 1200BC, several hundred new hamlets began to appear in those isolated highlands. Egypt's rulers seem to have been furious about that for, shortly after, imperial scribes recorded on a ten-foot granite slab the exploits of a military mission sent into Canaan. Its task was to attack a new, loose-knit community of peoples that consisted of escaped slaves and farmers fleeing the lowland city states. The hieroglyph used to describe them had never been used before. When sounded it came out as "Is-ra-el."

***

It's a good story, but one might still ask: So what? Why should any sensible person today wish to follow the tribal laws that a random group from that ancient time might have come up with? This is where the greatest twist begins.

History suggests that almost all slave rebellions break down. The rebellion's leader dies, and either dissension tears the group apart or a new dictator takes over. But in the Canaan highlands something peculiar happened. By the mid 1100s BC, tens of thousands lived there, and they came from utterly diverse backgrounds: the lowland farmers and escaped slaves—a mix of Semitic-speakers and Nubians and Libyans—from Egypt itself. Indeed, it's quite likely that the ten commandments were drafted before the foundation of Judaism, to cover this much broader community, of whom the soon-to-be-Jews were just one component. This makes intuitive sense, given that many of the Old Testament's ethical attitudes apply universally, rather than simply to the Jews themselves—a legacy of the commandments' original function of helping a diverse community treat its members fairly.

The villages created in this new refuge were almost entirely unfortified. Archaeological records show few signs of a protective state, and there are none of the ruined storehouses, stables or palaces abundant elsewhere in the region. This community of exiles left nothing but the remnants of small-scale co-operation, from limestone-lined cisterns for collecting water to agricultural terraces too complex for any one individual family to cultivate on the uneven ground. The new residents were spread out over tens of thousands of acres, yet were cooperating on their own, without coercion. Not only had they escaped tyranny, they had also found a new way of ensuring unprecedented social cohesion and co-operation.

How did they do it? Here's where we can begin to understand the lasting, progressive influence of the commandments. The central clue is hidden in the structure of the commandments themselves. Most people today imagine a physical list written on two joined slabs. But that image originated in 13th-century England, when Jews were forced to wear cloth markers of that design. The Bible does not mention joined slabs; only that they were written on two tablets. For modern archaeologists it's immediately clear what this means. City-states in the no-man's-land between the Egyptians and the Hittites often needed protection, and signed a series of "Hittite suzerainty" treaties to provide it. Dozens survive, and they were always written on two tablets, with the complete text on each, allowing both parties to have a full copy. The tablets were small enough to fit in a potter's cupped hand, keeping the clay warm and malleable during inscription.

Most importantly, they match the ten commandments in structure too. Both have a prologue to show what the dominant power has done to deserve the other party's loyalty. For the Hittites this meant city-state rulers accepting the protection of the Hittite king. For the commandments, it means the prologue "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." This would have rung especially true for these escaped slaves, for only through what must have seemed an extraordinary sequence of events would most have managed to escape marauding gangs of Sea peoples and make it to their upland safety zone.

The Hittite treaties then list obligations that the receiving party must fulfil—acceptable alliances, taxes to be paid—followed by guarantees that these would be followed. The commandments match this almost exactly. But a couple of twists give the commandments a wholly original character.

The Sea peoples' devastation had destroyed social rules as well as cities and property—and this created a rare opportunity to start afresh. Hence Moses's treaty is not addressed solely to a king; instead, it's spoken to an entire people. This subtlety is masked in the King James translation, which uses archaic "thou shalts." In Hebrew, however, this second-person singular was intimate, like the "tu" of modern French. Such an intimate treaty was unprecedented. Indeed, a list of public laws was itself a novelty. Antiquity's codes and rituals were generally not designed for the public. Imperial religions were like giant machines, cranked by priests and aristocrats for their own advantage. State-ordained rituals helped the cosmos operate, or sustained the king. Temples were closed to the public. Even in early ancient Greece it could be illegal to publicise a city's laws.

Moses's code, then, was radical. In Deuteronomy, he says: "This instruction which I enjoin upon you this day… is not beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, 'Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?' No, the thing is close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it."

Although this account was written several centuries after the Sea people's era, it captures this new attitude towards authority. It was exactly what was needed for survival in a remote highland sanctuary lacking any central political structures.

The commandments also ignore political subservience. There is nothing about grain to deliver, or troops to supply. Rather, at their heart is a series of guidelines for producing a co-operative life. In yet another example of woeful English translation, it turns out that the Bible never even terms them the ten "commandments." Instead they are ten devarim, which would have been understood as the ten utterances. "Commandments" are something imposed. But this list is more like a set of guiding principles.

***

So why is it that the commandments have proved so controversial? Partly because church authorities over the centuries have used them in ways contrary to their original intentions. Also, the story of the commandments appears close to parts of the Bible—written at very different times—that do reek of fire and brimstone.

But the fact that they were forged in a slave rebellion means the true message of the commandments has spoken to people trying to break free from unjust rule throughout the ages. Even when rulers tried to appropriate them, or hide them away, their true phrasing remained hidden inside Judaism, Christianity and to some extent Islam; carried forward like a recessive gene hitching to the future, lying dormant for whenever the time was right—as it was with Martin Luther King in 1950s and 1960s America.

Some of the commandments, it is true, do still read strangely to the modern eye. There might be something to be said for honouring (even if not loving) parents; about restricting murder, adultery and stealing. And the concept of innocent until proven guilty seems to have arisen from the ninth commandment (warning against bearing "false witness"). The merit of these sensible, indeed more or less universal, rules comes by imagining a society that doesn't support them. But the first three do seem to be a different story; indeed Hitchens insists they "suggest a terrific insecurity on the part of the person… issuing them."

A closer look at them, however, reveals a more interesting history than Hitchens proposes. The first simply says that those joining the compact are to "have no other Gods before me." The point isn't a theological one, for there was little resembling any Jewish religion at this time. Instead, it reflects the insight that the worship of many gods would pull people in different directions. Monotheism didn't have to be intolerant. Muslim armies often tried to stop citizens of their new empire from converting to Islam, partly because such conversions would dilute the tax base (since only non-Muslims paid full tax). Just like the early Hebrews, early Muslims had no problem living amid followers of other beliefs.

The second commandment (about "false idols") follows from the first one. It has nothing to do with insecurity on the part of a harsh, all-commanding deity. On the contrary, it represents a remarkably democratic shift. To see what typical Bronze Age deities were like, one has to look inside ancient Egyptian temples, which were more like today's power stations, keeping the universe operating, than modern churches or synagogues. Priests were technically trained and their temples—closed to the public—were built to sustain an empire's fundamental cosmology. Indeed, ordinary people didn't even have to be cautioned against trying to pray: they were unimportant, and their words weren't going to have any effect. But the Canaan exiles didn't need an empire's cosmological power. They didn't want the sort of idols that would lead some among them to support the pharaohs and kings. Their society was more democratic and access to the divine more open. The God of the ten commandments was the kind that came alive only when the whole population co-operated.

Yet what of the third commandment, the one about not taking the Lord's name in vain? Today, we take this to mean something like "thou shalt not swear when a hammer has whacked thine thumb." But that is a much later Calvinist-style distortion: there's plenty of obscenity and swearing in the Bible. Rather, think back to the highland refugees. Any miscreant who "swore" on the authority of the commandments about something he in fact had no intention of doing—such as helping in the next year's harvest—would undermine the trust everyone depended on. It seems a small matter, but this principle had immense consequences later on. When descendants of the original settlers were taken into captivity in Babylon in the 6th century BC, the habit of co-operation that the third commandment fostered helped to create the meeting house—the blueprint of the later Christian church and Muslim mosque. This was unprecedented. Ordinary people weren't supposed to join together, but the third commandment encouraged people to trust each other enough to do so. It is also about humility, a rejection of the hubris involved in presuming to speak on a god's behalf. In this sense, it has performed a function quite opposite to what Hitchens presumes. Many leaders (including Abraham Lincoln) have used it to block anyone invoking God's name to justify their political proposals—a humility one retiring US president would have been wise to consider.

One can go on, but the point should be clear: the fire and brimstone can be avoided simply by sticking to the commandments themselves. Their consistent message is not one of repression, but of freedom: freedom from fear of your possessions being taken; freedom from relentless work; freedom from chaos. Refugees today would seek little more.

Einstein once said that he felt the truths of the universe were like a series of thick, closed volumes waiting in a dimly-lit library. Very occasionally one of us is allowed to step forward, lift one of the age-old books, and get a glimpse of what was written on just a single page. Very little has crossed the dust of 30 centuries to shape us today. The ten commandments have.

Ainda sobre o debate que ousa dizer o seu nome: a "Homoconversão"

Continuo sem perceber se os opositores à igualdade ao acesso ao casamento civil a todas as pessoas independentemente da orientação sexual acham verdadeiramente que o actual impedimento leva homossexuais e outros a casarem-se com o sexo oposto, ou se impede os heteros de se converterem em homos. Uma coisa que a acontecer se poderia baptizar como "Homoconversão".

Continuo sem perceber como a mudançazinha do artigo do Código Civil afectará os heteros e como tal só posso atribuir tamanha ingerência a preconceitos e homofobia.

De Bag

Os Prós e os "Pros"

Algumas notas sobre o programa Prós e Contras de ontem:

1. O Eduardo Nogueira Pinto procurou, não sem alguma habilidade e sofisticação, recentrar o debate e os seus pressupostos. Falhou. É necessariamente homófobo quem não defenda a igualdade no acesso ao casamento civil para todos independentemente da orientação sexual, da mesma forma que os seus colegas novecentistas que defendiam diplomas específicos para negros também eram racistas. O Estado não deve, nem pode à luz da separação Estado/Igreja, continuar a privilegiar modelos de organização social com base em matrizes puramente religiosas e preconceituosas.

2. O "iluminado" discurso da Isabel Moreira teria saído beneficiado caso a sua autora o tivesse proferido com um pouco mais de calma, foi de qualquer das formas magnífico e, apesar de rigoroso e técnico, inteligível.

3. A abertura e tolerância com que o Pe. Vaz Pinto começou a noite revelaram-se conceitos mais frágeis nas suas mãos que um castelo de cartas nas mãos de uma criança.

4. Interessante mesmo, talvez a motivar um outro programa só sobre o tema, a intervenção de José Ribeiro (?), gay católico sobre a Igreja e esta forma de sexualidade.

5. Menos bom na oralidade do que na palavra escrita, Rui Tavares, pena não ter estabelecido melhor ligação entre a sua situação pessoa e o tema em discussão.

6. Mau mesmo os Senhores da Associação da Familia e os senhores catedráticos autores de um livro sobre a união de facto.

7. Muito bem a Fernanda Câncio, o Daniel Oliveira (como de costume), o Miguel Vale de Almeida e o pouco que se conseguiu ouvir de Pamplona Corte Real.

8. Faltou explicar melhor que da mesma forma que num casamento entre pessoas de sexo diferente não há um qualquer automático direito a adoptar, num casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo o direito à adopção estaria naturalmente condicionado ao melhor interesse da criança.

9. Por último faltaram, ou não foram convidados, ou não quiseram estar presentes, representantes dos partidos políticos principais, o que empobreceu o debate.

De Bag

Um vídeo educativo com os testículos de jogadores de rugby britânicos (grande desculpa...)

A conservadora OMS

A Organização Mundial da Saúde tem um "orçamento patético" e é uma instituição "conservadora", onde ainda não se fala de direitos sexuais.
in Público
Vale a pena ler a entrevista a Jane Cottingham - Organização Mundial de Saúde - pois nãe é todos os dias que alguém de dentro assume o conservadorismo desta organização

Para lá