Chinese actress rebuked

An award-winning Chinese actress who retweeted homophobic comments and then called on fans to retweet them has been censured by Chinese state television.

Lu Liping, who performed in a production of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt in Sydney last week, was called out by the host of the 24 Hours program, Qiu Qiming, on national broadcaster CCTV.

Qiu called on Liping to “reconsider her ways”.

“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 we agree that a person of such influence should have the power to openly discriminate against certain communities in China,” he said.

”There is no doubt that the sexual orientation of certain people in our midst is 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.

“We’d like to say a word to the gay community — and it’s something we’ve all heard many times over — I may not agree with the way you live, but I will defend your right to be different from me.”

The post Lu retweeted was written by a Chinese American pastor condemning New York’s legalisation of same-sex marriage.

“May God have mercy on this land which is falling into depravity every day!” he wrote.