Chinese actress Lü Liping caused an online uproar last week when she retweeted comments condemning gay marriage and homosexuality. She was asked uninvited from Taiwan’s Golden Horse Award ceremony, where she received the Best Leading Actress Award last year, following the incident. Now, CCTV is stepping into the fray with an uncharacteristically strong defense of the rights of homosexuals, From Shanghaiist:
Lü, winner of the Golden Horse Best Actress Award in 2010 and a born-again evangelical, had enthusiastically retweeted the homophobic comments on Sina Weibo by a Chinese pastor in Rochester, New York decrying the passage of same-sex marriage in the state.
This sparked off an intense debate that began with a call by gay activists for the boycott of Lü’s movies and has hogged headlines across greater China in the subsequent week. As celebrities, writers and academics alike joined in the whirlwind of debate, the Golden Horse Awards decided to rescind its invitation to Lü to present this year’s awards.
In the report on the programme “24 Hours” on the CCTV News channel, host Qiu Qiming (邱启明) held out unusually harsh words for Lü Liping, urging her to “reconsider her ways”. He said, “We respect the faith of individual celebrities, and we allow them to have their own point of view on issues. But, that does not mean that we agree that a person of such influence should have the power to openly discriminate against certain communities in China.”
”There is no doubt,” Qiu added, “that the sexual orientation of certain people in our midst are different from the rest of us. But they are also diligently contributing to society. Gay people, like us, have the right to exist and develop themselves in society, and this right should not be overtaken by any other concept.“
