Who: BoycottRussianVodka.com and Gays Without Borders
What: Picket line and speak out
Where: St Nicholas Cathedral (pictured)
Location: 2005 - 15th Street, between Church and Market Streets
Date: Sunday, August 25, 2013
When: 11:00 AM
Protesters will peaceably challenge the Russian Orthodox Church in San Francisco over its support for Russia's anti-homosexual propaganda law that has led to rising violence and anti-LGBT bigotry in that country.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I, who lives in Moscow, is a leading proponent of the law. Patriarch Kirill is a longtime supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the two leaders both strongly back the recently enacted anti-gay propaganda law that bans any pro-gay statement or demonstrations in public or private and on the Internet. The law, which was enacted in June, has drawn international condemnation.
Speaking in the English-language Moscow Times on July 21, Patriarch Kirill said of same-sex marriage, "Those who are true to their conscience in fighting these minority-imposed laws are subject to repression. It's a very dangerous sign of the apocalypse."
This action is designed to show the love and beauty of LGBT people through the display of the rainbow flag, our international symbol of acceptance and respect for our community.
The St. Nicholas Cathedral in the gay Castro district is under the control and direction of Patriarch Kirill, who in December 2010 appointed Father Leonid Kazakov of the St. Petersburg diocese to lead the San Francisco church. Emails and voice mails to the church were not returned.
On Sunday, August 25, starting at 11:00 am, which is after the worship service at St. Nicholas' church, members of the LGBT community will speak outside the church on the public sidewalk for acceptance and respect for the Russian LGBT community and call for the repeal of the anti-gay law. Rainbow flags will be displayed on the sidewalk.
Community organizers Robbie Sweeny of BoycottRussianVodka.com and Michael Petrelis of Gays Without Borders are coordinating the picket line and speak out.
(President Putin and Patriarch Kirill)
Russian Orthodox Church's Views on LGBT People and HIV/AIDS
January 2010, Moscow Patriarchate on Homosexual Marriage
The resolution condemns propagation of homosexuality as a fancy way of life because it undermines the foundations of family relations which are an integral part of relations in society. Using slogans to protect the rights of people “with nontraditional sexual orientation as a cover, their advocates have set up a background in society which largely discriminates natural marital relations of men and women.” Putting a homosexual marriage on the same level with a conventional one is a conscious destruction of fundamental public morals providing a basis for a global demoralization of society.
October 2012, Moscow Patriarchate on Alleged Church Harassment by Gays
'A cultural revolution’ against the family as subjected to persecution are expressions of the traditional vision of the family as the union of man and woman, not of two persons of any sex; subjected to legal persecution are statements concerning homosexuality as a sin and vice even made in a soft form; harassment by the LGBT and the use of the term ‘homophobia’ as an instrument for excluding disagreeing groups from pubic space.
Undated Sexual Orientation Position Paper, Moscow Patriarchate
The debate on the status of the so-called sexual minorities in contemporary society tends to recognise homosexuality not as a sexual perversion but only one of the "sexual orientations" which have the equal right to public manifestation and respect. It is also argued that the homosexual drive is caused by the individual inborn predisposition. The Orthodox Church proceeds from the invariable conviction that the divinely established marital union of man and woman cannot be compared to the perverted manifestations of sexuality.
This is why the Church denounces any propaganda of homosexuality.
Undated Transgender Persons Position Paper, Moscow Patriarchate
Sometimes perverted human sexuality is manifested in the form of the painful feeling of one’s belonging to the opposite sex, resulting in an attempt to change one’s sex (transsexuality). "The change of sex" through hormonal impact and surgical operation has led in many cases not to the solution of psychological problems, but to their aggravation, causing a deep inner crisis. Transsexuality should be distinguished from the wrong identification of the sex in one’s infancy as a result of doctors’ mistake caused by a pathological development of sexual characteristics. The surgical correction in this case is not a change of sex.
Undated HIV/AIDS Position Paper, Moscow Patriarchate
Social and medical factors and developments, which contribute to the formation of the so-called risk-groups, are only indirect and secondary causes of the HIV epidemic. The real first cause and source of the rapidly spreading epidemic is an unprecedented growth of sin and lawlessness, loss of fundamental spiritual values, moral traditions and guidelines in society.
From the medical point of view, there are no obstacles for administering the sacrament of Baptism to an HIV-infected person in the parish baptistery if he or she has no open bleeding wounds.
1 comment:
Back in 1917 the Bolsheviks effectively terminated the Russian aristocracy. A pity they didn't do nearly as good a job on the religious hierarchy.
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