A Brazilian judge, Benedicto Abicair has ordered the movie streaming service, Netflix to remove a Christmas special, The First Temptation of Christ, that depicts Jesus as a gay man.
The ruling by the judge was a response to a petition by a Brazilian Catholic organization that argued the “honor of millions of Catholics” was hurt by the airing of the special.
Abicair said the program’s withdrawal is beneficial not only to the Christian community, but to Brazilian society which is mostly Christian.
It would be recalled that in December 2019, Netflix faced huge conservative backlash from people all over the world, with wide circulation of different petitions to request the removal of the Christian comedy special.
Nearly 1.8 million users signed the Change.org petition for the 46-minute, Portuguese-language special to be removed from Netflix.
The petition also called on the Brazilian YouTube comedy group, Porta dos Fundos (“Back Door”), which made the special and has made similar ones for a decade, to be “held responsible for the crime of villainous faith.”
Another petition for the special’s removal, from the conservative group CitizenGo, had over 240,000 signatures. It called the special a “clear attack to Christianity as Christmas approaches.”
According to CitizenGo petition;
It is an absolutely unacceptable provocation. No one has the right to attack the faith of millions of people around the world. This type of supposed ‘shows’ only cause one thing: numbing the population to attacks against Christians.
The special which first premiered on Netflix Brazil on December 3 was produced by the Rio-based film company, Porta dos Fundos, whose headquarters was severely targeted in the Christmas Eve attack.
Netflix, however, is yet to comment on the ruling.
The comedy group, Porta dos Fundos also refused to comment on the judge’s decision, which contradicted an earlier decision rejecting censorship of the program.
The ruling is valid until another court orders otherwise.
