After scoring points with global environmentalists with his World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (CMPCC [2]) in Cochabamba this week, Bolivian President Evo Morales has got himself in hot water with gay activists across the planet. On April 21, he commented to reporters at the CMPCC on the dangers of factory-farm chicken—but in half-baked (pardon the pun) and homophobic terms. "The chicken we eat is full of feminine hormones," the populist president said. "And therefore when men eat these chickens, they experience deviances in being men."
Morales added that genetically modified products cause baldness. "Baldness is such a common illness in Europe that it appears normal, almost all of them are bald, and this is because of the things they eat, while indigenous peoples don't have baldies, because we eat other things."
Bolivia's opposition politicians were quick to jump on the remarks. "Trading in urban legends is a very poor theme for the summit," said opposition deputy Andrés Ortega.
But international gay organizations are also outraged. Spain's National Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals sent a letter of protest to the Bolivian embassy in Madrid protesting the remarks. The president of the Argentina Homosexual Community, Cesar Cigliutti, said: "It's an absurdity to think that eating transgenic chicken can change a person's sexual orientation. By following that reasoning, if we put male hormones in a chicken and we make a homosexual eat it he will transform into a heterosexual." (AFP [3], Guardian News Blog [4], April 22; Peru21 [5], April 21)
Evo is certainly on the right side in the global gastro-wars [6], but it's a shame to see him discrediting his critique of the industrial food system by mixing it up with such ugliness (and wackiness).
World War 4 Report on the scene in Cochabamba
See our last posts on the Bolivia climate conference [7].
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