Not all Brazilian laws are created equally

After the election of the presidents of the House and Senate, and the distribution of each chamber’s permanent committees, the 2019 legislature is fully underway. And lawmakers have wasted no time in doing what they do best: proposing bills.

In the lower house alone, almost 900 bills have been submitted already, covering a wide variety of topics. Putting it lightly, a significant part of them are neither urgent, necessary, or particularly intelligent. Here are some of the most eye-catching bills of 2019 so far.

Brazil above everything, God before everyone

During his victorious campaign, President Jair Bolsonaro repeated his now ubiquitous motto: Brazil above everything, God above everyone. Judging by the first month of the legislature, many of the representatives elected on his coat-tails are taking this to heart.

The very first two bills submitted to the House of Representatives this year came from the desk of Pastor Sargento Isidório, a curious candidate from the Northeast city of Salvador. A religious preacher and former member of the military, Mr. Isidório boasts that he is a “former homosexual,” and while initially declaring his support for defeated Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad in the 2018 election, he flipped to Jair Bolsonaro, claiming that Mr. Haddad “is gay.”

The best-voted representative in the state of Bahia, the man of God and the military got in ahead of the queue on February 4 and submitted Bills 1 and 2, both concerning the bible. The first consists of two lines only, declaring the Holy Bible as National, Cultural and Immaterial...