On the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO), a fairly small group of people held a rally in the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi. They were stunned when tens of thousands of anti-gay protestors attacked them, breaking through the ranks of the police and assaulting the people at the rally.
Two dozen stunned pro-gay rights protesters stood in a stranger’s kitchen last week. Blood streamed down a young woman’s face where it had been struck by a rock.
Outside the building, an angry mob was gaining in numbers and ferocity as the protesters’ outnumbered police escorts frantically debated how to evacuate them.
“All this crowd, like zombies, they simply wanted to kill us. Not beat or humiliate, they simply wanted to kill us,” said Nino Kharchilava, one of the protesters. “At some point, I definitely thought, ‘We’re going to die here, and that’s it.’”
Using their bodies as shields, the police eventually formed a narrow corridor through the throng of Orthodox Christian counter-protesters to a minibus the police had appropriated for their ad hoc escape plan.
This widely circulated video shows these religious people acting like crazed creatures attacking the minibus that was trying to take some of the demonstrators to safety.
The attacks were led by priests of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has been seeing a rise in influence in that country, and provides yet another example of the hatred that these ‘peaceful’ religions can manifest.
Disgusting is the only word to describe what happened.
*sigh*
Considering the persecution that Christians suffered under the Communist regimes (except when forced to make humiliating concessions in order to be barely tolerated), you’d think they’d be a bit more sympathetic to others who are in a similar situation.
It’s sad (and infuriating) to see that instead they seem to feel that it’s “pay back time” for all the groups they perceive as enemies.
Chiroptera,
I had thought that sympathy would also be the order of the day, and people would be more tolerant and careful lest they follow the path of their oppressors. But now I think that too often, leaders of such groups spin a new narrative around that experience.
They interpret their previous oppression as a test, and their liberation as vindication that they were The Keepers of the One True Way all along. The regular folks are happy to hear that their pain and suffering wasn’t for nothing, and was in “fact” for a Great Cosmic Purpose. Therefore, of course, the Wise Leaders Who Never Wavered from the Sacred Truth must have been onto something, so maybe we should all do exactly what they want us to….
The fact that real-world events are dressed up with theological claims that cannot be tested makes the fantasizing and retconning that much easier to foist on people.
My two cents.
Georgian Orthodox Church. No theological differences to the other Orthodox churches, just autonomous (autokephalous, “self-headed”).
The title of the video is Russian and says “the love of the Georgian church presents itself 2”.
Thanks. I have corrected it.
Evil.
Just. Fucking. Evil.