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.
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.”
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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.