A newspaper in Romania photoshopped an image of Divine into a Nazi uniform | Photo: Romania Libera
A leading newspaper in Romania has featured cover photo of iconic drag queen, Divine, dressed as a Nazi soldier.
Romania Libera featured the photo-shopped image on the front page of its weekend magazine to accompany an opinion piece. The opinion piece argued that increased LGBTI rights will lead to persecution of LGBTI.
The controversial image comes ahead of Romanians heading to the polls in a referendum to decide whether to make changes to the constitution which will permanently ban same-sex marriage.
Romania’s constitution currently recognizes marriage as being between ‘spouses’. But conservatives and Christian groups want the constitution changed to recognize marriage as between a man and woman.
Western examples of religious persecution
In the piece titled, The New LGBTQ Order. Equality But Not For Christians, authors Anghel Buturuga and Cătălin Sturza used examples from western countries to argue their case.
‘From the loss of employment to harassment and lawsuits, to arrest, the area of abuse is widespread and driven by a socially toxic climate caused by the so-called social “justice” of the left-wing activists,’ the authors wrote.
They said cases like Kim Davis proved that the increase of LGBTI rights lead to the loss of freedom for Christians. Former county clerk, Davis, refused to sign same-sex marriage applications after the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. Davis argued it violated her religious beliefs and was jailed for six days.
The authors cited the case of Colarado baker, Jack Phillips, who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Phillips won an appeal in the Supreme Court which upheld his right to refuse to make cakes for same-sex weddings.
‘There are some who associate religious persecution with the persecution of minorities,’ the authors wrote.
‘In fact, religious persecution does not mean rulers, instruments of torture and Inquisition (although they may also be aspects of this form of persecution).
‘A… stage of religious persecution is when the minority group that captured power wants to exterminate or silence all those who dare to assume the religious identity that has become undesirable for the rulers.’
The history of comparing LGBTI people to Nazis
Conservatives and Christian groups have used the tactic of comparing LGBTI people to Nazis before.
In 2016, Australian cartoonist, Bill Leak drew gay activists as rainbow uniformed Nazi stormtroopers.
Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian newspaper, published the cartoon at the height of the debate over same-sex marriage.
