Monday, May 20, 2013

Georgia Bishop Justifies Mob Attack On Gay Pride March


The Georgia bishop who help organize a demonstration against a Gay Pride march which turned violent has justified the protest.
An estimated 20,000 people led by priests attacked a group of 50 gay rights demonstrators in downtown Tbilisi, Georgia on Friday, sending 14 people to the hospital.
The throng of counter-demonstrators broke through police cordons and began hurling eggs and rocks at the marchers. Several priests brazenly attacked one of the several minibuses attempting to carry demonstrators to safety. In images captured by local television, one priest is seen repeatedly smashing the vehicle's windshield with a stool. Another attempts to drag a driver out of the bus. Several of the priests involved spoke on-camera with the media. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)
“They wanted to kill all of us,” said Irakli Vacharadze, whose group Identobia organized the gay rights rally.
In his Sunday sermon, Bishop Iakob Iakobashvili said that while the perpetrators of the violence should be punished, the Georgia Orthodox Church could not idly stand by and allow the activists “to humiliate us,” The New York Times reported.
“When there are so many people, it is difficult to speak only about Christianity and morals,” Iakobashvili told congregants from his pulpit in Tbilisi. “Many were not able to overcome their nature and saw enemies in the others, said bad words and punched them. I was told clergymen were among them. I am not able to either condemn or justify them. They are also humans.”
And while Georgian police at first promised a quick response, no arrested had been made as of Sunday.
The violence occurred a day following reports of a man being murdered in the southern city of Volgograd after he came out gay to two male friends.

No comments: