Politics
Wednesday February 14, 2007
Ukrainian Political Leader Accused of Attacks on Gays After Criticizing Homosexuality
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Gudrun Schultz
KIEV, Ukraine, February 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Homosexual activist organizations have accused Ukrainian politician Leonid Grach of attacking homosexual people, for comments he made criticizing homosexuality in November 2006.
Communist Deputy Grach, 58, is the chair of the Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities and International Relations of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament). Speaking in an interview last fall, Grach said homosexuality “is an anomaly, which is caused by the amorality and the depravity of man.”
He also said the present Parliament would not vote for legislation permitting same-sex unions and homosexual adoption, and said the next Parliament would not need to address the issue at all.
Homosexual and lesbian Ukrainian groups, led by the Nash Mir Gay and Lesbian Centre, were reportedly outraged by the comments, sending letters to Mr. Grach to demand that he support and protect homosexual rights.
Mr. Grach spoke out against homosexuality again last week, however, saying, “I, and my colleagues in Parliament, have to defend society from intrusions upon morality.”
“We must not admit into the consciousness – and souls – of people of any age the thought that the State is on the side of the people who are sowing debauchery, propagandising for depravity, for sexual permissiveness, and for bringing the abomination of seduction into society.
“The State must protect society from an evil, from violence, including such evil as homosexuality, lesbianism and suchlike others,” he said.
Ukrainians must observe the norms of “moral cleanliness, bequeathed to us from ancient times by orthodox ancestors.”
While homosexuality was decriminalized in the Ukraine in 1991, there is little support for legal recognition of same-sex couples in the strongly Orthodox country. Liberal estimates find 85 percent of the population would not support legal homosexual unions.
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.