Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, offered his opinion of gay pride to the Council of Europe, where he was speaking Tuesday. The Council of Europe has 47 member countries and seeks to “develop throughout Europe common and democratic principles based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other reference texts on the protection of individuals.”
“‘When persistent attempts were made to hold a homosexual parade in Moscow, we believed that that meant propaganda and advertisement of sin,' Alexy told a session of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) in Strasbourg, France. Attempts are made to justify homosexuality by calling it a disease, the patriarch said. Yet kleptomania can also be considered a disease, he argued. ‘Why then no one advertises kleptomania while homosexuality gets advertised via gay parades?' he said. ‘It is advertisement that is being forced on people who are a very long way from it,' Alexy said. The patriarch also said the church commiserated with all sinners, including homosexuals, ‘sinners whom we love while we hate their sin…But at the same time, we Orthodox Christians cannot depart from what is taught by th Bible and by the apostolic tradition of the church,' Alexy said. ‘Somebody may think otherwise, and nobody must be discredited on the basis of the character of their private lives,' he said. ‘In the same way, nobody must try to force me or my brothers and sisters in faith to be silent and [to prevent us from] using the word sin for something that is called sin in God's Word,' the patriarch said. It is the right of religious believers to question the acceptability of legal and political support for a feature of society, he said.”
And apparently to beat the crap out of gays and lesbians at the parade.
Speaking of kleptomaniacs, Queen Padme called. She wants her look back.
