We need to get to know evangelicals better in order to convince them of the righteousness of our proposals.

In recent days, given that indicators of the level of acceptance of the Bolsonaro government persist in remaining around 30%, there has been much discussion about how to deal with this situation.

According to opinion polls, the justification for maintaining this situation continues to be the high level of approval given to the Bolsonaro government by a significant portion of the evangelical community.

But what could lead this group of people, who consider themselves so in tune with Jesus, to support a government that is characterized precisely by not following the paths that Jesus' life legacy indicates to us?

Bearing these concerns in mind, several prominent figures in the popular field have been drawing our attention to the need for those formulating political proposals on the left to engage in work focused on gathering data that will allow us to detect more clearly how the evangelical community positions itself in relation to the main issues that guide our politics today.

Clearly, it will be nearly impossible to succeed in our objectives with evangelicals if our knowledge of them is poor. However, we need to emphasize that knowing them should not necessarily imply that we should adopt their positions in order to win their vote.

Expanding our knowledge should be geared towards equipping ourselves with a greater capacity to effectively convey our political proposals to the target audience. We must make evangelicals understand that what we propose has much more to do with the ideals of Jesus' life than many of the theses propagated by various current religious leaders, particularly among neo-Pentecostals. And for this, we will not need to adopt a religious viewpoint. The teachings of Jesus as a human being are more than sufficient.

To illustrate my point, I want to make some comments on two issues that have been the source of conflict within this community lately, and thus seek ways to overcome them.

First, I would like to address the issue of decriminalizing abortion and the question of sex education in schools. While acknowledging the valid goal of minimizing the number of abortions that have been practiced in our society for quite some time, we need to make it clear that, to a large extent, this occurs due to the high level of misinformation among our youth about the functioning of the sexual and reproductive metabolism of human beings.

Contrary to popular belief, a better understanding of these issues has the potential to steer young people away from the much-touted desire to taste the forbidden fruit and, consequently, even reduce the early initiation of active sexual life. Simply comparing our rates of teenage pregnancy with those of societies where sex education is part of the school curriculum reveals that the situation is much worse here.

As a direct consequence of the above, the number of clandestine abortions where pregnancy termination is criminalized is also higher than the rates of abortions performed in countries where it is legal and regulated. Adding to the problem, it is necessary to highlight the appalling number of deaths that occur among women seeking illegal forms of pregnancy termination. Sadly, these deaths almost exclusively affect poor women, since wealthy women always have access to good quality private clinics.

Therefore, for an evangelical to act in accordance with the aspirations to eliminate or drastically reduce the occurrence of abortion, it is unacceptable for them to oppose measures that clearly contribute to this end. Therefore, there is no breach of consistency in an evangelical admitting to being in favor of the decriminalization of abortion in the spirit that we defend it.

Secondly, I raise the issue related to amending the legislation that maintains the prohibition on the consumption and trade of drugs. I also believe it is appropriate to state that our desire in this case is to eradicate drug use and dependence as much as possible and to put an end to the power of the mafias that control the illicit drug trade and profit greatly from this activity.

It is well known that the main parties interested in keeping the use and trade of substances considered toxic illegal are the gangs that have built and exercise their power based on the conditions generated by their prohibition and criminalization. Surely, none of these criminal organizations would have the strength they have in a normal situation. Contradictory as it may sound, illegality is a sine qua non condition for drug trafficking to be profitable. In a scenario where public health interests prevail, the criminal structures of these gangs would not be able to exert their influence, create their networks of corruption and, consequently, impose their rules of operation.

The high profitability provided by the clandestine drug trade serves as one of the main incentives for trafficking organizations to develop policies aimed at generating new consumers and creating dependence in a market that, due to government prohibitions, is completely dominated by organized crime. And, in order to exert control, interference with official regulatory bodies is felt, and the corruption of their agents becomes a constant. Therefore, while organized crime occupies and corrupts spaces among young people from impoverished communities, who are used as retail labor, it also operates within the upper-middle-class youth, who are the potential consumers to be brought into the market, interfering with the very police structures responsible for maintaining the prohibition, which are bribed to become accomplices of the trafficking.

 In light of everything we have just expressed, all those who sincerely wish to reduce and minimize the problems that the expansion of drug use is causing to our society must understand that maintaining the current policy of criminalization only contributes to the perpetuation and intensification of the crisis. In other words, if we truly want to begin to resolve this issue, one of the first initiatives to take should be the decriminalization of consumption, considering it a public health problem, not a criminal one.

Therefore, considering that evangelicals sincerely aim to rid our society of the ills stemming from the expansion of drug addiction, there are no logical reasons for them not to support our proposals. The measures we are advocating point to an effective resolution of the problem, and not to a mere demagogic use of language that, while declaring itself an enemy of drug use, ends up contributing to its expansion.

The conclusion to be drawn from the argument I have presented is that we should indeed dedicate ourselves to better understanding what goes on in the minds of our evangelical brothers and sisters. However, our purpose should not be exclusively related to winning the votes of this community. There is no doubt about the importance of having the evangelical vote to join forces in the pursuit of a more just and supportive society, that is, a society in the mold of what Jesus himself showed he wanted during his life among us.

Of course, we can also learn from them and we should be willing to listen to them attentively. However, when we are clear that we are taking the correct position, there is no reason to abandon our vision simply to gain votes. We very much want that vote, but we also want the evangelical to be aware that it is a vote consistent with what they and we aspire to.

We must strive with all our might to broaden our acceptance throughout the evangelical community, but this should not mean that we have to give up values ​​that we consider inalienable.