Anti Gay Evangelicals in Costa Rica Threaten to Derail The Election on The Issue of Gay Marriage

The unusual but beautiful Costa Rican Frog

[REUTERS]

 Conservative Christian singer Fabricio Alvarado Munoz is in a tight race with his center-left ruling party rival ahead of a run-off on Sunday to decide Costa Rica’s presidential election, their campaigns are driven by dueling views on gay rights.Alvarado Munoz, a 43-year-old former television host shot to the top of the polls in January soon after denouncing a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that month which called for the legalization of same-sex marriage.

The fight over whether gays and lesbians should be able to marry has overshadowed other pressing issues like a growing budget deficit seen limiting funding for public safety and social programs while crime is rising. 

The election is seen as a barometer for the mood in Latin America, where countries that passed laws favoring same-sex unions in recent years hold presidential elections over coming months. 

Costa Rica, one of the region’s more prosperous and stable countries, was ruled by a two-party dynasty until 2014 when first-time candidate Solis rode an anti-corruption wave to power. 

The unraveling of the old order raises the possibility that a significant number of Costa Rica’s 3.3 million voters will decide at the last minute.  

“The absence of party identification leads to a couple of very unusual conditions: lots of voters who are undecided plus an unprecedented volatility in voter preferences,” said Ronald Alfaro, a pollster at the University of Costa Rica. 

TWO COSTA RICAS 

The bitter race has laid bare divisions between urban professionals who want political leaders to embrace modernity and an older, more rural society that favors traditional ways. 

Alvarado Munoz(picture below) has pledged to fight what he calls the “secular state” and “gender ideology,” to eliminate sex education in schools and maintain strict restrictions on women’s access to abortion. He says he would stiffen penalties for corruption and unleash an “iron fist” against crime, but has said less about budget priorities or anti-poverty measures. 

 

*Who Are These Evangelicals?

There are two things which are offsprings of extreme conservatism and extreme religion, usually in this case fundamentalist evangelicalism whose preaching is not caring too much about this physical life since they are going to have a better one latter one when Jesus come back or when they die.

 Some even want the failure of governments to rush down the pike so the second coming would hurry up and come so they can be with their king. Yes, they believe in kings and monarchies.  We do know kings don't do well in democracies which is the opposite. They don't believe :man: can have all those liberties and not get into trouble and lose their eternal lives. So they have never been friends of democracy except to have the opportunity to grow and preach their message like they are not allowed in their prefer forms of government which is federalism, capitalism and for even communism if they are given the freedom to coexist.

 They prefer what they link with the respect of the past to law and order and power of the parents to decide everything about their children and decry today's laws with parental control on books they have to read in school, fashion and people having the freedom to do as they want since they believe their life has to be sacrificed by living as the bible reads. They don't say one should pray but one should "pray incessantly" because that is the way the bible describes it.  Believing people should do as the good book says. Pray every awaken hour is how they interpret that passage. People who believe in god and the bible but are not evangelicals would see that passage as telling them to pray and think of god every chance they get. In other words is a reminder that one should prayVs. Pray every awaken hour even if its brings discomfort which is an order! 

 They don't care about budgets or the everyday wheels of governemnt as long as the right of preaching is done. Who cares if people are hungry and don't have a lot of money if in the next live they will have more than they need. Sacrifice now, don't enjoy now, not even sex because that is for procreation. On the other hand, there are some Federalists among them that believe the governemnt should not do much for people and not collect much in taxes and they should be given full reign with little or no regualations to work hard and acquire the fruits of their labor which would be to get ultra rich like you see some pastor's and others that support those particular believes being ultra rich and they don't have a problem with  Christ saying, "it would be easier for a man to enter thru the eye of a needle than a rich man thru the door of the kingsom of god". 

“This is the biggest fundamentalist threat that Costa Rica has ever faced,” said Julia Ruiz, a 36-year-old accountant, while she and her girlfriends tried on dresses inspired by “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a web TV series based on the anti-totalitarian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. 

The women plan to wear the dresses as a protest against Alvarado Munoz’s socially conservative agenda. 

Alvarado Quesada faces his own detractors, especially those fed up with the unpopular outgoing government. 

The candidate has sought to dodge accusations of corruption plaguing the Solis administration by launching a plan to halve the budget deficit while providing social assistance to the country’s poor and protecting minority rights. 

Additional reporting by Alvaro Murillo; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Richard Chang

*Adam Gonzalez, 5yrs of Seminary studies in Divinity, Evangelism, the History of the Christian Church

Article by Enrique Andres Pretel

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