A member of Bogota’s city council is facing criminal charges after referring to lesbians as “sluts.”
City Councillor Jorge Duran (Liberal Party) became the center of controversy after making the following statement:
“I hope that what you have proposed about the use of one car by several persons, means they could send a lady to pick me up. This lady must like men because these days it’s fashion that many women don’t like men. If this lady who picks me up likes men there is no problem, because I don’t like that type of sluts.”
The comments caused the fury of gay rights groups and of colleagues who considered Duran’s qualification of women who like other women discriminatory.
“The freedom of expression is one thing. Saying that you don’t like lesbians is entirely legitimate. But when you begin to denigrate a community you commit a crime. Here were are dealing with denominating lesbians as sluts and that is harmful,” Councillor Angelica Lozano told newspaper El Espectador.
The offended lawmaker announced to file criminal charges against her colleague.
Despite his comment being recorded on taps, Duran denied having called lesbians “sluts” and that he had been misinterpreted. Instead, Duran said media made a “massive failure” by falsely putting words in his mouth.
“If you carefully revise the content of my words it becomes evident that I did not use the word ‘lesbian,’ nor did I say that these people, who I respect like any other, are sluts,” the councillor said.
It’s not the first time Duran finds himself in the eye of the hurricane for discriminatory comments; In an earlier council session he requested that the people allowed to sessions were limited to members of the council and their assistants, “because this is becoming a niggers’ feast.”
Sources
- Analizan si Jorge Duran incurrió en delito al calificar a las lesbianas de ‘mujerzuelas’ (El Espectador)
- Concejal que llamó mujerzuelas a lesbianas dice que “lo malinterpretaron” (El Espectador)
