Life

Paraguay president-elect apologizes for anti-gay remarks: ‘Time to mend fences’

Paraguay president-elect apologizes for anti-gay remarks: ‘Time to mend fences’

ASUNCION, Paraguay — Paraguay’s president-elect, Horacio Cartes, said Monday that he’ll urge Congress to approve Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur, and he apologized for making anti-gay comments during the campaign.

Horacio Cartes

A millionaire businessman, Cartes said it’s time to mend fences.

“I have no shame in apologizing to those who felt offended for an expression of mine with respect to same-sex marriage,” Cartes said.

During the campaign, Cartes said marriage should only be between a man and a woman, and that “everyone should live within the rules. If not, we’d be like the monkeys that swing in the trees.”

Cartes, 57, also threatened to inflict harm on his own genitals if his 28-year-old son were to seek to marry another man.

I would shoot myself in the testicles, because I do not agree,” he said, using slightly more colorful language to describe how he would react to such a possibility.

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