Vladimir Putin may have a hard time finding support for his brutal invasion of Ukraine elsewhere, but he has the full-throated support of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
And guess what: it's all about The Gayskis.
Giving his sermon on "Forgiveness Sunday," the last Sunday before the start of Lent, Patriarch Kirill said the war is about “which side of God humanity will be on” in the divide between supporters of gay pride events — or the Western governments that allow them — and their opponents in Russian-backed eastern Ukraine.
For eight years, there have been efforts to destroy what exists in the [Russian-controlled breakaway region of] Donbas. What exists in the Donbas is a rejection, a principled rejection of the so-called values that are now being offered by those who lay claim to global domination. Today, there is a certain test for loyalty to that power, a certain pass into that “happy” world, the world of excessive consumption, the world of illusory freedom. Do you know what that test is? It’s very simple but also horrific: it’s a gay parade. The demand to hold a gay parade is in fact a test for loyalty to that powerful world, and we know that if people or countries resist this demand, they are excluded from that world and treated as alien.
It wasn't just a one-off thing; Kirill kept coming back to harp on gay pride: “Pride parades are designed to demonstrate that sin is one variation of human behavior. That's why in order to join the club of those countries, you have to have a gay pride parade,” he fulminated, as if gay pride parades were somehow the defining feature of Ukrainian culture and politics. (Hardly.)
If you're wondering why anybody should care what Patriarch Kirill says (well, you wouldn't be alone in that), he is the head of the entire Russian Orthodox Church — officially, "Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church." That doesn't make him the pope of all Eastern Orthodoxy (the "Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople" is the guy deemed the first among equals), but it does include the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
At least, it did until Forgiveness Sunday; his sermon understandably angered nearly every cleric and congregation in Ukraine. There has been ample objection from the patriarchs of Orthodoxy's other nationalities as well to Kirill's support of Putin's war.
Kirill has been closely allied with Vladimir Putin throughout his patriarchate, and, like Putin, is a former KGB agent. When he's not obsessed with crushing gay pride, he has accused Ukraine of trying to "exterminate" Russians in Donbas.
Why else should we care?
Not long ago, many Americans took comfort in the apparent progress society seemed to be making toward justice and equality. This was the 21st Century! Sliding back into repression and prejudice might take place in places like Russia, but It Couldn't Happen Here!
Then the November, 2016 election returns came in.
Kirill has his mirror image here in the U.S. in such men of the cloth as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress, and their choir of Trump apologists. They, along with Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and other American oligarchs, have brought right-wing extremism into the mainstream to the point where their storm troopers have actually assaulted the seat of government in order to overthrow the elected government of the United States. (You may have heard of it.)
We took a step back from the brink in 2020, but the forces of repression are definitely not giving up.
So, if fighting for progress, justice, civilization, reason, democracy and, yes, gay pride means sticking up for Ukraine, it's an easy call. Слава Україні!
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