Moscow, Russia – The head of the Russian Orthodox Church said Wednesday that although the church views homosexuality as a sin, gays should not face discrimination.
Patriarch Kirill said “those who sin” must not be punished and therefore the church opposes any discrimination. Same-sex unions, however, should not be considered equal to heterosexual marriages, he said.
“We accept all the choices a person makes — in terms of their sexuality as well,” the patriarch said in comments carried by the state RIA Novosti news agency.
Gay rights advocates argue that homosexuality is not wrong because it is an in-born orientation, but the church insists that it is a choice.
It was unclear to what extent the patriarch was easing church dogma in his carefully chosen statements, made during a meeting with visiting Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland.
Opposition to gay rights remains widespread in Russia, where homosexuality was decriminalized only in 1993.
Several high-profile Russian politicians have spoken against gay rights. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov once described gays as “sodomites” and has blamed them for spreading AIDS.
Kirill, who was elected patriarch in January, has been seen as a modernizer and a politically savvy figure, but so far he has made no major statements that would signal a shift in the church’s conservative views on homosexuality and abortion.
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The Roman Catholic Church teaches that being Gay is NOT a sin. Howeve,acting out the propensity is.
The Roman Catholic Church is of the Devil in that it teaches that Mary is the boss of GOD.She was a completely pure woman that gave birth to the savior of the world,,,JESUS CHRIST.
You can only get to GOD through him,,,,John 14:6
How on earth can homosexuality be right?? They can’t bear children. If it is so right, why did God not just make Adam and Steve and let the 2 of them live happily ever after in paradise?
But God created Adam and Eve and called them man and woman.
Take the Bible and read Romans 1 from verse 16. God loves the sinner but He hates the sin. You can justify homosexuality until the cows come home but it still does not make it right.
Homosexuality is a foul spirit that takes possession of a person through something that happens to them, i.e. rape as a child, perversion and willful lust and pornography. Many people were set free already from this yoke of homosexuality. The bondage can be broken through Jesus Christ if a person really wants to be set free.
If homosexuality is so “right”, why do so many homosexuals commit suicide, sleep around, suffer of depression and lo and behold, die of AIDS old and alone.
I pity all of you stumbling around in the darkness of this world.
This ill-treatment of gays WILL change everywhere, and soon.
A whole world can’t remain this stupid for very long.
There’s absolutely NO reason gays should be ALLOWED to
ESCAPE the MISERY and MONOTONY of matrimony,
and the TRAUMA of divorce and AGONY of alimony.
(The one that complains the most gets to be the wife.)