A news report aired by Saudi's Al Ekhbariya TV on Christmas Day led an attack on homosexuality calling it "an abnormality" and a "pandemic that is more dangerous than viruses".
State-owned Al Ekhbariya TV which is the main news channel in Saudi Arabia broadcast a short report showing scenes from different pride parades from across the world, as the commentator argued "homosexuality poses a threat to the social cohesion and inspires wrong ideas in society".
#SaudiArabia #LGBT : State tv with report saying “Homosexuality is a pandemic no less dangerous than viruses” https://t.co/CkTqgucSLj
— sebastian usher (@sebusher) December 25, 2021
The report continued to warn against media campaigns that advocate for LGBTQ rights and how their calls for equality have been featured in different Western media outlets, including movies, TV Shows, and video games. It also called statements that homosexuals are born and not made "is an illusion" that "can not be personal freedom".
Al Ekhbariya's report also admitted that homosexuality has been removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) issued by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
So these people basically prefer to die with a lot of pain and failure of their respiratory systems and lose people around them and live in a asocial lockdown rather than to see a rainbow flag
— El guapo? (@hyunckel_dan_) December 26, 2021
There’s no cure ever for these https://t.co/vL6v5pCAqX
The report also continued to attack liberals, saying that "they are now using homosexuality the way they used pyrography for political purposes". Then the report quoted recent remarks made by the Russian president Vladimir Putin, ones that were perceived as "transphobic" after he rejected men athletes announcing transforming into women, saying that "a man should be a man and a woman should be a woman".
The report was widely shared on social media by users who highlighted a Saudi return to deep conservative tones, despite huge social and cultural transformations and openness that have been noticed amongst Saudis since 2015 and the new political leadership of Mohammad bin Salman.
