‘Homosexuality just like drug abuse’: Hong Kong bishop defends anti-gay stance of Cardinal John Tong Hon

The Catholic church would speak up against homosexual behaviour just like it would do for the issue of drug abuse, a senior bishop said this morning.

Auxiliary bishop Michael Yeung Ming-cheung was speaking in defence of Cardinal John Tong Hon, leader of the city’s 379,000 Catholics, who was criticised for urging his flock to consider candidates’ views on gay rights when voting in the district council elections on November 22.

In the pastoral letter dated Thursday November 5, Tong also said that “...sexual liberation and gay rights movements are challenging and twisting” the city’s core values on marriage and family, and urged all Catholics to consider their local candidates’ views on LGBT rights in the upcoming district council elections.

“The church doesn’t have any enemy and it wouldn’t criticise anyone. It was only talking about a wrong-doing. For example, it was wrong to [abuse] drugs and we would say so, but we still love drug addicts,” Yeung said.

“In the pastoral letter, Cardinal Tong did not tell anyone to vote for A, but not B, or to chant a certain slogan, he did not. The letter was intended to tell everyone that it is our responsibility to vote, and to mould their conscience. Everyone should be responsible for their conscience-moulding,” he added.

Bishop Michael Yeung’s comments come the morning after some 10,000 people gathered in central Hong Kong for the annual gay pride march, esimated to be the biggest crowd ever in the event’s history, and attended by senior diplomats from the USA, Germany, UK, France and Australia.