Abstract:
From public statements made by some Pentecostal and neopentecostal religious leaders in Brazil, I propose to map the production of the public controversy "Gay Cure". The category "Gay Cure" refers to the controversy published in different media about t possibility of redirecting homosexuality to heterosexuality through psychotherapeutic programs and religious conversion. I assume that public controversies generate disputes and associations between social actors who speak from heterogeneous fields. As a specific case, I propose to reconstruct the dispute of these different actors around the Resolution of the Federal Council of Psychology No. 1 of March 23, 1999, which prohibits Brazilian psychologists from collaborating with events and services that propose treatment and cure of homosexualities. My argument refers to the way in which these actors, aware of the growing importance of legal normativity and the idea of human rights in contemporary society, began to direct their discourses and forms of action in order to produce a field of disputes for argumentative monopoly in institutional spaces focused on the discussion of Human Rights and Minorities.
Keywords:
religion; politics; sexual rights; controversies; sexual reorientation therapy