Russian Journalist: LGBT Community to Blame for Meteorite

A prominent Russian journalist and television personality is being criticized after making ridiculous remarks that the LGBT community is to blame for a meteorite crashing in Chelyabinsk, a city located just to the east of the Ural Mountains and on the border of Europe and Asia, last year, RT.com reports.

On his program, "Special Correspondent," Arkady Mamontov cited the Old Testament about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and said that the meteorite on Feb. 15 was connected to homosexuality in the country. The journalist said the meteorite was a warning "to all of us that we should keep the family tradition, traditional love, or else something else - not only the Chelyabinsk meteorite - will hit us."

Russia's LGBT community didn't take Mamontov's remarks lying down, however. RT reports the country's LGBT Network filed a compliant with the prosecutor's office on Thursday and the organization accused the journalist of hate speech, according to LGBT Network's chairman, Igor Kochetkov. Kochetkov added that Mamontov also claimed that gay men and women want to "destroy traditional Russia."

Russia's leading LGBT rights activist Nikolay Alekseev also submitted a request to Moscow officials to gain permission to stage a protest against the city's program.

"Special Correspondent" aired Mamontov's remarks in an episode on Tuesday, which also included a new documentary claiming that the West is trying to carry out a "gay revolution in Russia." The film suggests that Russia's LGBT community holds conferences, which are sponsored from the West and are funded by American businessman George Soros. According to RT, Alekseev took to Facebook and said he gave a two-hour interview to filmmakers but none of his comments were used in the film.

This isn't the first time an anti-gay pundit has accused the LGBT community of a natural disaster. When Hurricane Sandy struck last year, conservative Christian pastor John McTernan claimed the deadly storm was because of the LGBT community and because of President Barack Obama's marriage equality support. McTernan said the storm was "the most powerful hurricane on record" that "could do catastrophic damage to the entire Northeast."

He also said the president is "100 percent behind the Muslim Brotherhood which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem. Both candidates are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda. America is under political judgment and the church does not know it!"

McTernan also claimed New Orleans' Southern Decadence gay Labor Day party was to blame for the arrival of Hurricane Isaac.

"The church, city and nation have not repented and the homosexual agenda is far worse than it was in 2005," he wrote. "New Orleans is still hosting Southern Decadence with open homosexuality manifesting in the streets of the city. It could be that God is putting an end to this city and its wickedness. The timing of Hurricane Isaac with Southern Decadence is a sign that God's patience with America's sin is coming to an end."