Speaking to conservative US Christian news site LifeSiteNews on October 7 in Rome, Stankevičs said: "Homosexual relationships are destroying not only our Christian identity but also our human identity, the identity of men and the identity of women."
"We have to explain it because it's not against homosexuals. We are pro- these persons. We are invited to defend each person, but we are invited to disarm a lie and a lack of truth in such relationships."
Stankevics' unnamed interviewer enthusiastically described the Archbishop's words as "true love" and "not even stopping when it harms ourselves by being politically incorrect" to warm smiles from the Archbishop himself.
Earlier, the interviewer made astonishing claims that African countries were being "threatened with the denial of food aid unless they gave in to gay rights" by the United States and Great Britain - a claim which met no challenge from Stankevics.
Instead, he said Latvia too was under pressure to accept equal treatment of minorities.
"Really we are under pressure. Two years ago we had Gay Pride and next year we have Europride because it was not successful.
"At the same time I invited all Christians to my cathedral for prayer for moral values in Latvia and for sane families. In the Catholic cathedral we had more persons than in Gay Pride."
Homosexual relationships are against nature
"Gay pride was in June and during it there was hail. cold wind and cold rain," the Archbishop chuckled, though he stopped short of claiming the bad weather was an act of God.
The organizers of Europride want to "promote it and impose it" against the will of the local population he claimed.
"Until today we were successful in resisting this imposition of the law... homosexual persons are not discriminated against in Latvia. They have the same rights and they don't need special rights.
"Homosexual relationships are against nature and it's inner disorder," the Archbishop asserted.
