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Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church has came out in criticism of anti-gay discrimination.
The church leader met with the marvelously-named Thorbjørn Jagland, secretary general of the Council of Europe. According to Russian news agency RIA Novosti, he told Jagland: “We respect the person’s free choice, including in sex relations.”
Although [Patriarch Kirill] reiterated that the majority of religions saw homosexuality as a sin and gay marriage could not be allowed, he added: “Those who commit a sin must not be punished… And we have repeatedly spoken out against discriminating people for their nontraditional sexual orientation.”
This is a dramatic shift from previous statements issued from the church figurehead during his previous role as the community relations director for the church, when he would routinely compare homosexuality to pedophilia.
Um, thanks? Has Big Poppa really came around in his thinking, or is this purely PR?
Image from Russia at War.
1 response so far ↓
1 mc2010 // Dec 24, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Just to clarify , what the Patriach is trying to say is that even though homosexual behaviour is a sin like anger & lieing etc it doesnt mean that they should be punished by the law or by discrimination.
This article doesnt explain in what respect the Patriach compared Homosexuality with Pedophilia.
The Patriach could rightly compare the 2 two as being morally wrong with Pedophillia be the more serious and being rightfully punished because it harms others, where as those who practice homosexuality only hurt themselves.
So unless someone knows of the Patriach saying homosexuals should be punished like Pedaphiles ,I dont think he has changed his thinking on homosexuality at all. So im not sure how the author of this article came to the conclusion that he has changed.
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