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New 'Gay Marriage No Thanks' group launches with 'ten good reasons' to oppose equal marriage
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Barry Cryer brands ITV's Vicious 'homophobic' television
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Lord Tebbit: I wouldn't have been surprised if Jimmy Savile was homosexual
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Archbishop of York: Would the Church of England rather bless 'sheep and trees' than gay couples?
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Lib Dems' Baroness Williams to support anti-equal marriage 'union' amendment
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Mixed martial arts fighter: 'Equal marriage could lead to incest, bestiality and child marriages'
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Maria Miller tables Public Order Act amendment protecting critics of equal marriage
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Labour MSP Elaine Smith: 'I'm against equal marriage but don't call me homophobic'
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Tory Lord Mawhinney tables 'traditional marriage' amendment for equal marriage bill
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Lord Hylton tables new wrecking amendment for the equal marriage bill
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Kafka 375
Robert in S. Kensington 361
That There Other David 314
Eddy 304
D.McCabe 285
Jock S. Trap 280
twitless 265
Rehan 242
Pavlos 224
bobbleobble 216
Offending the Christian religionists = criminal behavior, and time in prison.
Attacking minorities in the streets = Give that man a medal!
Can we not just boycott Greece until they learn that fascism is a bad idea?
But denigrating, villifying and using hateful outageously untrue rhetoric about equal marriage and gay relationships aren’t considered as offensive?
About time state religion was outlawed in the EU and one of the prerequisties for membership.
Is Greece aware of the hatred other nations starting to develope to this country. Kick them out of the EU. Stop going to this backward corrupt country. Let them rot in hell.
There are a great many good people living in Greece, Mr. Mooz. I don’t wish any of them to have to “rot in hell”, as you put it.
Those ‘great many good people living in Greece’ are silent. Those many people choose governments that are either corrupt and steal from anyone or lash out to anyone trying to help them. Have you seen those those marches where they compare Angela Merkel to Hitler? Have you read those reports about how much income tax they pay and about how much we already have paid them?
Are you aware of the enormous shift to the right. Google ‘Golden Dawn, violence, xenophobia and homophobia’ and then ‘Greece and gay rights.” They’re all going in the wrong direction, no improvement.
Sure, I’ll judge each person as an individual, but Greece as a whole, stinks. They are like Bulgaria and Rumania and should not have been part of the E.U./Euro before they got there act together.
Perhaps they should get up off their backsides and nip this proto fascism in the bud before it really gets out of control.
LGBT people aside (and is anyone surprised at scapegoating? It is in the fascism handbook) if one person is subject to the whims of the church this way then anyone is.
Apathy is not an option. It really isn’t. And if apathy remains SOP and these “good people” consistently sit on their hands then I see the rest of the EU having little choice but to push them away.
All that is needed to ensure that evil men flourish is for good men to do nothing.
As it is evident, the propaganda has very well worked its way through northern europe, that all south is this and that.. Despite, just an example, the official EU reports stating that Spain and Greece work the most hours per month and have less vacation days than for example Brits or Germans..Anyways..
whenever there is an economic crisis , there comes also moral and social crisis, that’s proved throughouth history unfortunately.. and there is crisis in whole Europe, Europe is becoming narrow minded, xenophobic and closed up, haven;t you noticed ? don;t we learn anything of our history and so many wars on this continent, exaclty because of what I mentioned before? what happened to solidarity, tolerance and persistence as founding values of Europe?
Of course, this requires education and not reading Bild and the Sun.. who is the hater ? have you read your comment ??
Time they left the EU and joined the Arab League…..
I did’t know it was blasphemous to say Jesus Crist was gay. That’ll be the Jesus Christ who never married and hung about with a group of men and a fag-hag.
just sayin’
Don’t forget that in the UK Mary Whitehouse successfully prosecuted Gay News and its publisher using the blasphemy law as recently as 1977.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse_v_Lemon
seriously????? wow, I am so privileged to live here in Canada. I can’t believe this story and I am appalled to read that a modern day government endorses charges that is nothing more than freedom or speech and freedom of expression. Wow, I am stunned! I guess there was a reason I have never gone to Greece.
I certainly hope western nations and their allies do not support them or come to their aid when their economy unravels to its bitter end.
You’re fortunate in that it hasn’t been invoked for decades, but from what I can find out Canada does still have a blasphemy law on the books (section 296 of the Canadian Criminal Code).
It is highly unlikely that it would ever be invoked again in the UK. While the vile Mary Whitehouse’s case was successful there was not a little furore over the very idea of such a prosecution and I doubt if one could find a judge nowadays willing to adjudicate such a prosecution.
Such a law was mooted here in Ireland under the previous Government but quietly died a death when the Paedophilia within the Roman Catholic cult was discovered. I think if it were to be mentioned now the messenger would almost definitely be hung drawn and quartered or at very least committed for life to a secure institution…. The very idea that a belief should be protected in this way is just beyond the pail in a decent, educated and fair society
Such a shame that Greece should be so backward when it used to be the most advanced, progressive and freethinking place on the planet. Proof how the mighty can fall when polluted by delusional religious thinking.
Interestingly, this report in PinkNews has completely omitted the fact that has been included in reports elsewhere, that the charge of blasphemy has been brought by the Bishop of Piraeus.
PinkNews seems to have chosen to slant the article so that readers place all the blame on the fascist party Golden Dawn.
Golden Dawn harrassed the director, cast, and audience members of this play, but the blasphemy charge has been brought by the Bishop, by a leading light of the Greek Orthodox Church, a Christian!
Golden Dawn is strongly Orthodox and there is no doubt a link between their feelings and that of the Bishop, but we need to be aware of the facts, Pinknews!
The religious groups must get their political and legal knowledge from like-minded people and groups. You’ll notice that the Orthodox church and Golden Dawn are not just starting to -look- more and more alike, but they are starting to show up in the same places, and to speak and act in a scarily similar way.
Sooner or later, they will be bedfellows.
Actually, Eddy, the article DOES state that the lawsuit was brought by a bishop.
It just doesn’t name the bishop in question.
You’re right. I missed that very brief reference to “a bishop”. I was blinded by the article’s general concentration upon the fascist party, rather than the Bishop. I made the point because I know Greece intimately and it is the Greek Orthodox Church that is behind all such moves in Greece.
This is Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus, who is a documented homophobe. He has successfully brought suit against other gay organizations in Greece, thanks to the kangaroo courts that pass for “justice” in Greece these days. Modern Greece pays lip service to what we in the West take for granted: freedom of the press and expression, free of government interference.
True. Unfortunately. Although having said that, Greece is far better place for gays to be than next-door-neighbour Muslim Turkey. So far in Greece it’s been a case of do it but don’t shout about it.
However PN did provide a link to the source of the original story, RTE>ie the Irish broadcaster…..so hardly a cover up on Pink News part.
RTE.ie **
*speechless*
What do you ecpect from a country where you are forced to change your name and religion to get citizenship
This is untrue. It is extremely difficult to acquire citizenship in Greece, but you do not have to change your name or your religion.
I know 2 brothers that changed their names and religion in order to get citizenship and becasuse of that they are not legally brothers in grecce.If you do that you are considered ‘omogeneis’ or ”co-ethnics” and get special rights and can attain citizeship a lot easier
@Jerry…
…..That is just not true. The choice was theirs. They were not forced; lets keep this on the ground and not start making hysterical claims like yours to emphasise your bigotry. It is enough for the Religious to be bigoted without starting to do the same on a Gay website…..
I am sorry to hear that you see it that way .My claim was not hysterical nor bigoted for it is factual because if they hadn’t done that they would have been expelled and i know many other cases where the same did heapen.I know that is very hard to believe but the Balkans are horribly backwards and this reaction is to be expected regarding the play i mean
Gods don’t exist, so blasphemy is a non-existent crime!
Ah, the truth hurts, doesn’t it?
If Greece wants to stay in the EU their going to have to buck their ideas up at some point… ether liberalise, cut corruption and get to work.
or leave.
Simple.
If they keep weltching off the other states like they are at the moment with no willingness to change then the people of the country will keep suffering in the mire of the various extremist groups.
@Ben…
…** ” their going to have to buck their ideas up” …. “they’re going to have to buck their ideas up” as in “they are” is different to the ownership inferred in “their”… just saying.
Apollo wept…
It seems that middle ages is still on all around the world.
Time to kick Greece out of the EU, more trade sanctions on Greece, no more aid money and no more EU bailouts!
It is time Greece equalised the age of consent for gay men (17 for gay men – while it is 15 for heterosexuals and lesbians) and to stop human rights abuses, political corruption and political and social influence of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Greek Parliament on every piece of law they pass.
The trouble is that we will be doing Greece a favour by kicking them out of the EU! The longer they stay in the EU and the Euro the longer they will suffer! Britain’s economic recovery in the early 1990′s began the very day we got kicked out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism which allowed us to cut interest rates and let the £ find it’s true value on the foreign exhange markets. Anybody who recalls the ERM will remember interest rates going sky-high – as much as 15% simply just to keep the £ strong against the Deuchsmark and a lot of people had their homes repossessed because they couldn’t keep up with their mortgage repayments.
……..the UK wasn’t kicked out The Chancellor at the time took Britain out….
No doubt Golden Dawn is behind all this. It was not all that long ago that a stag party was arrested in Greece for dressing up as nuns. Religion does unfortunately have a lot of legal status in Greece and even taking the mickey out of nuns is an offence. I personally don’t agree with blasphemy laws although I feel that people should use their common sense when it comes to commenting about certain people. I personally do not believe that Jesus was gay and I certainly do not believe that he was a homophobe. Yet again this case demonstrates the need for separation of church and state.
As for the Golden Dawn Party I fear that they will become more popular as voters in Greece become more angry with their government’s brutal austerity measures as they try in vain to keep their country in the Euro, something that needs to be killed off now and allow the Eurozone countries to revert back to their original currencies.
I’ve just posted a comment but it hasn’t appeared! Not sure this will either.
I have been there, on October 12th, when there was the big crash with Orthodox Christian-Talibans and Golden Dawn on the one side and those who wanted to see the play on the other. The police practically did not prevent blocking the entrance of the theatre, but it was obvious that the performance would not be held. It was held the next day under the same security measures, but then it stopped because of the constant threats to actors by GD. This consists terrorism, to my knowledge. I am a 42 yo doctor and I’ m really conserned if it is wiser to migrate to another EU country.
Hi Dimitris. Thanks for posting. Great to hear your point of view. If you want any guidance at all on living in the UK, email me at nell_gwynne @ hotmail . com (without all the spaces).
First of all I want to thank you for your interest. Greece indeed has many old fashioned laws, which are incompatible to the standards of EU treaties, signed by Greece too. I understand the hatred many people feel about Greece, for many reasons right now. Greek governments have a long history of lying to European and International Organizations that everything is OK. Not only in statistics. If you can have a handy translation, please read what on earth the Greek ambassador at the UN has said, that in Greece lgbt people face no discriminations
http://www.10percent.gr/epikairotita/eidiseis/2775-2012-03-13-14-08-07.html
On the contrary, government and people understand the benefits of staying in the EU, which are not only financial. So I would rather appeal for help. Contact your MPs and other politicians, they can pressurize. People here in Greece are in general concerned what others think about them. So, tell them. Most speak english. Join Greek sites (a good start http://www.lifo.gr)
…and others. This would be a revolution in Greek net. I can see Euronews in English. Euronews proposed to Greece and Cyprus to create a Greek branch and Greece is posing obstacles! Guess why. They don’ t want to spoil the trashy soup of Greek channels. Some people though, want to see and hear something else at last!
And more, laws on blasphemy were not put into power now, with the rise of the far right, but they are here for decades. Last year, conservative party of New Democracy (now main partner in the government) blocked a law on hate speech, proposed by the Socialists, based on their hypocritic interest on the freedon of speech (!)
I think I pressed a report to one of my own posts! I wanted to mention that the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church condemned the acts of GD. This was quite on time, because many bishops are backing them up. This is disgusting. I believe that Christian beliefs can co-exist with a modern state, (or can’t they ?) Can they co-exist with villains? But some days later they asked to have the last wotd on the teachers who teach the lesson about religion in Greek state schools! More hours for that, less hours for computers, no hours for citizenship education.
The Greek Orthodox Church permeates every citizen’s life from Day One with it’s propaganda! Few escape, even when living outside Greece.
This country is a joke, and is rapidly going from a basket case to a casket case.
Yes, I’ve met some wonderful people and made good friends, but in the end, most people I met seem to think that changing anything at all is giving up their ‘Greek-ness’. Instead they blame everything on someone else, Germany being the favourite scapegoat right now. Before it was the Turks, the Albanians, the Macedonians, et cetera.
They can be very backwards, actually. Not at all modern people, and the Orthodox Church is largely to blame for this, IMO.
And now the European free ride is over and it’s crisis all round, is anything going to change? Nope. Still holding on to all the old rotten ‘values’. After 30 years of EU they’ve signed on to everything and done nothing. Pretending is NOT the same as doing!
I would have thought with all the grievances they have with Germany, the last thing they’d want is to have the worst of Germany – fascism – telling them what to do. Guess not.
Failure.
Dear all,, the church is going to war against the LGBT community.. they finally found something that they can get their teeth into. Watch this space it will get worse. Greece is in such a mess that just about anyone offering a diversion from the real issues will gain traction. A brief stroll down europs history, just before WWII is as far as you need to go to see where all this hatred comes from. Fascism never dies, it just hides under the surface. We are in for a lot more of this crap
It is utterly beyond belief that blasphemy is still a criminal offence in the 21st century in a part of modern Europe. That the word is still in use defies rationale, and in Greece the birthplace of Democracy and scientific thought and knowledge too.
This current outrage is proof positive that Religion in general and Christianity in particular simply must be put in its place once and for all.
We as a modern and secular citizens and free people cannot let those who are afflicted with the disease that is religious faith to blight our lives in this way. How long until they call for the reintroduction of the Inquisition one wonders. Greece must be told ” enough” or face being expelled from the European Union. It is a great pity that they don’t follow the Bible so rigorously when it comes to paying their lawful taxes, something that is anathema to the Greeks in general and has left their country in penury and in debt to the Rest of the Union! Hypocrisy at its most blatant it would seem…
Time Greece were sent a very clear message by the EU. This outrageous action is entirely incompatible with EU membership.
—-
-True: there are still blasphemy laws in Greece but are rarely used. Part of the coalition government has asked their abolition.
…Spain is the birthplace of Inquisition, with a similar modern history to Greece, 60 years of Franco’ s dictatorhip (in Greece after WWII at least 50 years of an overt dictatorhip or a malfunctioning democracy). Similar economic problems as well… But where is Spain right now in terms of gay rights? There is hope for Greece too. (Am I too wishfull because I live here and I cannot see the disaster? Probably)
The question after WWII was to the East with the Communists, or the the West with NATO? There was a civil war for that with more dead people than WWI plus WWII. The Church at this time overtly supported right and far-right but now, there is place for other attitudes within the Church itself. I think that most Greeks understand that the rigjt way for the future is within the EU. No other way, towards Russia for instance. There is a mud of nationalists and Christian extremists who wish something like that. They are working day and night mostly by telemarketing of trashy books…
…. EU should ask for a step to communicate with Greek people with the mass media. A TV channel and newspapers. They are giving so much money, after all. Many are eager to hear. But all around there is as I said a trash of pro-Russia prophecies and anti-european reflects of orthodox radicals, which is sultry. You can’t hear anything else around. This is really toxic.
Thanks for this. I noticed one such reference in the UK media to the idea in Greece of going with Russia, on account of having the same Orthodox state religion, so it’s fascinating to hear you report that the idea is being pushed quite a bit at the moment. Getting into bed with Putin and the corruption of Russia is not a good idea.
Yes, but since EU invests so much money right now, but in the past decades too, they should have asked and must do this right now for a step in communicating some ideas.
What a tragedy. Greece is such an amazing country. I do fear fro them all if Goldie Hawn gets into power.
Greece is going down the pan. It’s still a medieval country in many respects. I lived there for a year and can honestly say countries like Lebanon are more liberal. Blasphemy laws?! Sounds more like Pakistan to me.