Orthodox Christian ministers lead thousands in Georgia to assault and chase gay rights protestors. (Disclaimer: This is Russia not America.)

Courtesy of Global Post:  

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. 

A widely circulated video shows Orthodox protesters accompanied by priests assaulting the minibus, breaking windows with rocks and fists and trying to drag the terrified activists out as the van slowly made its way through the crowd. 

The confrontation took place on International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO), when Kharchilava and her fellow activists were headed toward a small rally in the center of the Georgian capital. They were representing the Women’s Initiatives Supporting Group (WISG), an NGO that promotes gender education. 

Tens of thousands of anti-gay protesters organized by priests thwarted the demonstration by breaking through police lines and chasing the activists. 

Twenty-eight people were injured in the incident, which drew condemnation from human rights organizations and Western embassies. 

Often I hear that there is a vast difference between Christianity and Islam, in that Christians are less likely to use violence in order to suppress opposition to their world view or kill those that they deem sinful, but in reality such is not the case.

It is not the religion itself which instructs its peaceful existence within the community, it is the community's demand that it curtail its more aggressive and judgmental components that determine how it interacts with those unlike themselves.

When there are fewer willing to challenge the religious leaders, nor any government willing to hold them accountable, THIS is the result.

An even more effective conduit for organizing and leading people other than politics, is through religion. And the battle for supremacy, and control of the populace, between those two factions is never ending. Fragile treaties are only established once one gains dominance over the other, as we saw happen when the Fundamentalists took over the Republican party in this country.

Don't think for a moment that if our government were suddenly rendered impotent, and unable to maintain order, that the most strident and radical among the religious leaders in this country would not establish their own version of order that would see the murder and torture of all who did not adhere to their faith or dared to challenge their right to lead.

Indeed the streets would run red with both non-Christian and Christian blood and it would all be done in the name of God. And the thickest pools of blood would belong to the homosexuals and atheists.

Why do YOU think the Right Wing is constantly trying to sabotage government?