“I’m gay, and proud to be so,” says Carlos Bruce.
The front page of one of Peru's major newspapers blared the headline: "I'm gay, and proud to be so."
It was a quote from an interview with Carlos Bruce, a former cabinet minister, one-time serious contender for the vice presidency, and now one of Peru's most popular members of Congress. His sexual orientation had long been widely discussed, and for years he'd answered direct questions about it by saying: "I don't discuss my personal life."
Bruce's abrupt change in strategy last week signals just how much the politics of LGBT rights are changing in Peru, which has lagged far behind while many other countries in South America have become world leaders on the issue. Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil have all established marriage equality since 2010. This week, one of Brazil's top bishops said that "same-sex couples need legal support" and endorsed civil unions. Meanwhile, Peru's cardinal has denounced a civil union proposal Bruce introduced last September as a "caricature of marriage that will later destroy it."
Bruce came out just as his civil union proposal has become one of the most fiercely debated subjects in Peruvian politics. The bill still seems likely to fail — recent polls show between 61 and 73 percent of Peruvians oppose it — but the fact that he no longer believes coming out is political suicide suggests a cultural shift may be taking place that is even more significant than a change in partnership law.
"Carlos Bruce is one of the most beloved members of Congress in Peru," said George Liendo, of the Lima-based sexual rights organization Promsex, noting that Bruce won loyalty from many through his role in helping get Peruvians into homes when he was housing secretary. "The fact that a person like him says he is gay and is proud to be so, ultimately changes the negative connotation of homosexuality."
Bruce hadn't exactly gone to great lengths to hide being gay before coming out. His evasion of questions about his sexuality, he says, was a pretty obvious non-denial denial.
"That was a way of saying yes, but I don't want to speak about it," Bruce said in a phone interview with BuzzFeed. "Everybody knew."
And he has mostly been unmoved when the media or his political opponents tried to make an issue of it. Politicians have called him the equivalent of "faggot" on the campaign trail, national comedy shows have mocked him as the "godfather" of effeminate homosexuals, and Cardinal Cipriani accused him of using his office to "justify" his sexual orientation when he introduced the civil union bill last year.
But until this week, he felt the cost of acknowledging it would be too high. "If I can imagine a politician saying he's openly gay, for sure he [would lose] 80% of his voters," Bruce told BuzzFeed in a 2012 interview. Even if he kept his seat in Congress, it would mean writing off another bid for national office, he said.
Now he believes it might even help him if he makes another run.
"Maybe it can be a good thing for higher public office," Bruce said. "One thing that everybody is saying here — even the people who are against me — 'I don't like this guy but I have to say he has courage'."
Such as the many tweets like this one that appeared after the story ran last Sunday:
