PETITION: Dump Netflix over video depicting Jesus as a homosexual Sign the petition here.
UPDATE 01-09-2020, 18:38 P.M. EST — As predicted by LifeSite’s source, the Brazilian Supreme Court just overruled Judge Benedicto Abicair’s decision, allowing Netflix to leave the blasphemous First Temptation of Christ available for viewing in Brazil. Read LifeSite coverage here.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, January 9, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― A judge has ordered Netflix to remove a blasphemous film from its service.
The judge, Benedicto Abicair, handed down his judgment in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday. The decision followed a petition signed by over two million Brazilians stating that the comedic film, entitled The First Temptation of Christ, broke the law and “seriously offended Christians.” In the film, Christ is depicted as a homosexual.
Edinburgh-based Brazilian university student Ricardo German told LifeSiteNews he was delighted by the ruling.
“I think it’s great,” he said via social media and explained that the judge was on solid legal ground. “According to Article 208 of the Brazilian Penal Code, to ‘publicly denigrate an act or object of religious worship’ is a crime punishable by up to one year in prison.”
“Judge Abicair did nothing but order the provisional suspension of a work in clear violation of that legal prohibition,” German said. The judge, according to German, can forbid Netflix’s Brazil installation — officially a “legal person” for the purposes of legal proceedings — from making the film available to view. He can also bar Porta dos Fundos from advertising the film anywhere that can be accesseed from Brazil, “which would technically include the internet as a whole (at least in the Portuguese language, some jurists could say).”
At the same time, German was surprised that the judge ruled as he did because of the left-leaning tendencies of modern Brazilian courts.
“The order will almost certainly be reversed by the higher courts (the High Court of Justice or the Supreme Court), unfortunately,” German said.
“The superior courts don’t apply the law: they decide what outcome they would like the most and, based on that, confer whichever twisted hermeneutics they need to effectively render any legal disposition contrary to their ideology meaningless,” he continued.
“They’ve done it with gay ‘marriage’ back in 2011, they’ve done it with abortion of fetuses with anencephaly, and they will probably do it again now.”
German added that 100% of all seats in the superior courts are filled by presidential nominations and “if you’ve had over two decades of left-wing governments, you get what you get.”
The film was produced by the Brazilian film company Porta dos Fundos, whose headquarters were firebombed on Christmas Eve. No one was hurt. German told LifeSiteNews that the small group of men who attacked the offices carried flags of the “Brazilian Integralist Action” movement. The president of this group has, however, repudiated the attack.