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)
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Urged Lu to "reconsider her ways"
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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."
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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.“
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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.
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