It appears that the Chinese Government is following the Singporean Government in snipping the Christian Right when they attempted to condemn the gay community simply because their faith construction was against gays.

The award winning actress Lü Liping, a Christian, had re-tweeted strongly anti-gay comments attacking gay marriage in New York. She had also quoted the anti-gay clobber verses in her micro-blogs. She is importing the foreign anti-gay sentiments from the West into China.

The response was especially poignant from the state authorities. The CCTV News Channel in China (reported by the Shanghalist.com)

• Urged Lu to "reconsider her ways"

• remarked that "We respect the faith of individual celebrities, and we allow them to have their own point of view on issues. But, that does not mean that we agree that a person of such influence should have the power to openly discriminate against certain communities in China."

• Said ”There is no doubt that the sexual orientation of certain people in our midst are different from the rest of us. But they are also diligently contributing to society. Gay people, like us, have the right to exist and develop themselves in society, and this right should not be overtaken by any other concept.“ 

• Concluded that "We'd like to say a word to the gay community -- and it's something we've all heard many times over -- I may not agree with the way you live, but I will defend your right to be different from me."

Liping, openly straight, has been disinvited to do the presentation for the 2011 Golden Hose Awards. "While the Awards cannot control speech by individual winners, it does not support nor agree with discriminatory remarks of any kind." said the Golden Horse organizing committee.

The Christian Right has a field day attacking the small and weak gay community for hundreds of years. Maybe the tide is turning even for China!

When one is a public figure, our comments can cause much harm. The bible says that our tongue can cause a large fire. It also opens the door for Christians in China to be ill treated simply because they were Christians.

Christianity is a choice whilst our sexual orientation is innate. When Christians in China demand that gays to be persecuted, and jailed for no other reason than their mutual love for the people of the same sex, we are sowing the seed for our own persecution without cause. Religious faith is not natural, for there has to be a choice of beliefs and lifestyle. We have seen too much of the damage caused by activist religious faith who used their freedom of religion to deny others basic human rights especially in the Middle East.

If Lu Liping had been strict on the bible, she should repent for not wearing a scaft , and for not covering her body and face. As a women, she is supposed to be quiet and keep to herself and stay at home if she abides so strictly by the blibical law. The measure one used to judge others will come back as a measure that we will be judged by.

The strong reaction by the authorities may be caused by the fear that Christianity is growing rapidly and are becoming more vocal in China. If they do not defend the gay community, they may be next being criticised.

As Christians we should be persecuted only for righteousness sake, for preaching the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. We should not be criticised for unrighteousness sake, to use our strenght to condemn and persecute a much smaller and weaker minority group who in no way can speak out to defend themselves and who did not come against our work in any way.