OJ, IT'S RURAL AND COLD, TOO

Priest is defrocked over gay wedding (Jeremy Page, Reuters, 9/5/2003).

The Russian Orthodox Church has defrocked a priest in a provincial city for marrying two men in the country's first reported gay wedding amid intense global debate over the Christian church's attitude to homosexuality.

Russian news agency reports yesterday said the Nizhny Novgorod Orthodox diocese in central Russia had also condemned same-sex relations as a "deadly sin" and proclaimed the wedding of Denis Gogolev and Mikhail Morozov invalid.

"This blasphemous act cannot be considered a marriage under any circumstances," Interfax news agency quoted a statement from the diocese as saying.

"The Russian Orthodox Church is against single-sex marriages and, guided by the Holy Scriptures and church traditions, is condemning homosexual relations as a deadly sin." . . .

Debate over same-sex weddings is rare in Russia, which remains deeply homophobic although homosexual relations between men, a crime in Soviet times, were legalized in 1993. Homosexuality between women was never officially outlawed.

Last year, a group of deputies in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, proposed reintroducing prison sentences for homosexuals as part of what they said was a campaign to restore traditional moral values in Russia.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which has also called for a return to traditional values, advocates barring gays and lesbians from working as teachers or taking up senior positions in the army and prison management.

It is also opposed to euthanasia, abortion, and artificial insemination.

They want to bar lesbians from prison management? Did Roger Corman live in vain?

(WARNING: Link is not for everyone, although fairly tame.)

Posted by David Cohen at September 5, 2003 1:52 PM