President of Brazil's Supreme Court Dias Toffoli ruled on Thursday that Brazilians should be allowed to watch a new comedy depicting Jesus as a gay man who brings his boyfriend home for Christmas, after a lower court banned the film. "The satire," wrote Toffoli in his ruling, "will not affect the Christian faith of Brazilians,” Pink News reported. The 2019 film The first temptation of Christ, produced by the Brazilian comedy YouTube channel Porta dos Fundos with streaming giant Netflix, was not available in Brazil for roughly four days following the original court decision delivered on Wednesday.
In that ruling, judge Benedicto Abicair wrote, “The right to freedom of expression... is not absolute.”
The film caused uproar and massive protests, including a petition with two million supporters, calling for it to be removed from Netflix. The offices of the production company in Rio de Janeiro were attacked by a Molotov cocktail on December 26.
The movie was meant to be aired as a Christmas special.
Netflix described the movie as “Jesus, who, hitting the big 3-0, brings a surprise to meet his family. A Christmas special so wrong, it must be from comedians Porta dos Fundos.”
Brazil used to be considered a global leader in LGBT rights, having legalized same-sex marriages in 2013 and legalizing homosexuality in 1830 – 65 years before Oscar Wilde was sent to prison for sodomy and 122 years before Alan Turing was prosecuted for indecency.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is considered by some to be anti-LGBT after he slammed his country’s supreme court when it decided anti-LGBT crimes are a form of hate crime in June 2019.He accused the judges of “legislating” from the bench, AP reported. He also said he would rather that his son be dead than be a homosexual.
His son Eduardo twitted about the film saying its “garbage” and “does not represent Brazilian society.”