Henrique Capriles: To discriminate against gays is absolute fascism

[joshcryer]

Capriles, a descendant of Polish Jews on his mother's side, was a victim of racist and homophobic slurs from Chavez supporters last year. Maduro appeared to allude to his rival's sexuality during Monday's rally.

"I do have a wife, you know? I do like women!" he told the crowd with his wife Cilia Flores at his side, who has served as attorney general but is stepping down to join her husband's campaign.

Though single, Capriles has had various high-profile girlfriends in the past. He scoffs at the personal insults, saying they illustrate the government's aggressive mindset.

I'd like to send a respectful and considerate message in rejection to the homophobic remarks made by Nicolás (Maduro) today. It's not the first time. I believe in a society without exclusion and that's the way I express it to the country. A society where no one feels excluded based on the way they think, their race, their creed, their sexual orientation. People should go out and reject it.

That's fascism. Absolute fascism. From the extreme right.

If that's how you want to attack me, let it be. But from here on I will always demand respect for all Venezuelans. Because the society that we want to build in Venezuela is a society without exclusion.
You cannot talk of inclusion if there is exclusion. There should be overwhelming rejection of something like that.

Now, of course, I already predicted that Maduro would start invoking the homophobic rhetoric. It is incredible that Capriles has come out in support of the LGBT community when Chavez himself fell short of doing that (outside of rhetorical flourishes). It is absolutely incredible. He's just won over a chunk of the chavista progressives, who can't stomach Maduro's homophobic bigotry.

Source, with much more info about Maduro and chavista bigotry in the 2012 campaign: http://blabbeando.blogspot.com/2013/03/venezuelan-presidential-candidate.html

[David__77]

1. No, I don't think "he just won over" much at all.

Neither candidate support equal marriage rights. I would think that gay Venezuelans would be suspicious of both: Capriles for his alliances with clerics and open rightists, and Maduro due to certain Chavista gay-baiting.

I don't know if Capriles is a Venezuelan Lindsay Graham, but I will say that I take great delight in the involuntary outing of politicians. To some, such a thing is homophobic.

[joshcryer]

2. The thing is he's coming out condemning the homophobia.

Maduro is championing it and using it as a platform.

I'd be delighted as well if Capriles turned out to be gay, but only if he was President of Venezuela first (he'd never get elected if he was gay and open about it).

[Bacchus4.0]

3. Capriles is the progressive candidate n/t

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[joshcryer]

4. Yep.

[David__77]

5. Maduro Denies Being Homophobic

“I didn’t address the sex life of the opposition candidate and he feels alluded to and responds against me as if I have said something about his life. I respect him,” Maduro said during the opening of the Caracas Book Fair.

Maduro also said that the Venezuelan Constitution recognizes the rights for sexual minorities and that at the time it was being drafted the opposition tried to prevent these figures from being introduced.

“If I were gay I would assume it with pride in public and love who I love with my heart. No problem, because the worst homophobic is the person who discriminates against his own,” he added.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=89531

I agree with the words of the last paragraph. What is good is that both candidates at least feel compelled to make pro-gay noises.

I do recognize the ever-so-slight continued assertion that Capriles is a closet case. I personally think he might be a homosexual, and think it would be great, if he were, for him to openly acknowledge it. It would help the cause of lesbian and gay Venezuelans.

[joshcryer]

6. Sure, but Maduro will go back out and use the same slurs.

He's two faced on this issue, imo. I will continue calling him a homophobic bigot no matter how often he apologizes. The fact that he goes out and does the insinuations right after apologizing just cements it for me.

As far as Capriles coming out, if he is homosexual (which I do think is actually a decent possibility), it would destroy his chances of being elected President of Venezuela. The fact that he's not been seen with any women through the past two campaigns would indicate to me at least that he'd be making a serious sacrifice. That's the sort of thing, that if it turns out to be true, would be incredibly admirable.

[David__77]

7. I think neither side is great on gay issues.

My sense is that the opposition contains more forces that are "organically" opposed to homosexuality - it's part of their ideological view fundamentally. For much of the Latin to-the-left-of-social-democracy, I think the appeals to patriarchy have been a function of pragmatism rather than deep conviction. "Proletarian morality" was more about winning over culturally backward strata of the working classes than about some deeply held "universal principle." Does that make the result any better? No. But I think there's more hope in "curing" them of the illness, than those afflicted with religious patriarchy. Both "illnesses" stink and are unworthy of support.

I do wonder what would be the impact if homosexuality becomes an important campaign discussion/issue. I would say that it is about time for the discussion to be had in a Latin American country in an open fashion. It is not about one individual - it is about the freedom of everyone to live according to their heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual orientation.

All this said, I wish there was a third path for the people of Venezuela. There are many, but they are closed for the time being. The "radical left" is actually split. There is the old Stalinist/pro-Albanian Red Flag group that is very active in supporting Capriles. Their youth group leader's first name is actually "Stalin," and he was a major leader in the pro-RCTV student protests a few years back. The old left-right paradigms are nonsense. To me, it's about war vs. peace, speculative looting vs. industrial development, and neoliberalism vs. sovereignty.

[joshcryer]

8. I think the opposition is so marginalized they are anti-chavista on any issue.

So if chavistas say homophobic slurs, the opposition will gladly embrace LGBT issues. It's not real in any honest sense, it's just being against "anything the chavistas do." The thing is that Capriles has been heavily hit by homophobic slurs.

Here's an example of the crap they spewed during the last elections:



I was saving images but many of them were not able to be posted on DU without a post being hidden (photoshopped images of gay men performing sexual acts with Capriles' face pasted on top).

As far as the paradigms here, I think that chavistas actually fall in the neoliberal camp, not ideologically, but in practice. Chavez himself took responsibility for the boligarchs but understood that he could not do anything without them in place. Without big elite conglomerates making the deals with foreign entities. There is no substantiative difference, in my mind, of the state owning and controlling all the media to further its interests and big media for-profit moguls owning and controlling all the media to further their own interest. The end result in both scenarios is a poor media outlet and a shut down of civic duty. The end result of neoliberalism then exists (this is following the corporatocracy interpretation of the end result of neoliberalism; which is accurate, I ignore the claims made by neoliberals, as much as I ignore the claims made by chavistas). Basically you have a state corporation running things, and nothing is different.

Part of the reason the old left supports Capriles and the opposition is because they are tired of the cronyism and the monopoly that chavismo has on power. They want autonomy to act outside of chavismo and have power. Of course, they're a very small minority on the scheme of things, so as far as they're concerned anything that hurts the chavistas' grasp on power is a good thing. In the end they are largely irrelevant and sites like WSWS wouldn't even acknowledge that they exist.