Brazilian judge approves 'gay conversion therapy', sparking national outrage
Source: The Guardian
Brazilian judge approves 'gay conversion therapy', sparking national outrage
The ruling overturns a national psychology council decision in 1999 forbidding psychologists from offering treatments claiming to cure gay people
Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Tuesday 19 September 2017 17.33 BST
A Brazilian judge has approved gay conversion therapy in a ruling which prompted widespread outrage and raised fears of a conservative backlash.
Waldemar de Carvalho, a federal judge in the capital of Brasília, overruled a 1999 decision by the Federal Council of Psychology that forbade psychologists from offering widely discredited treatments which claims to cure gay people.
Coming a week after a bank cancelled an exhibition of gay art after protests from rightwing and evangelical Christian groups, the ruling has raised fears that progressive policies could be overturned.
Brazil has a growing population of evangelical Christians who have protested vociferously at plotlines in television soap operas featuring gay or transgender characters, and increasingly ally themselves with burgeoning rightwing groups.
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Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/19/brazilian-judge-approves-gay-conversion-therapy