On the last Friday evening of Sydney WorldPride 2023, a group of Christian men walked through Newtown chanting the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary prayer.
Mostly dressed in black, some wearing balaclavas and hoods to cover their face, the group was accompanied by police through the usually LGBTQIA-friendly neighbourhood. Police walked alongside what they later called an “unauthorised protest”.
Footage of the group initially circulated on social media Friday night with warnings for those in the area.
Soon after, Charlie Bakhos, the administrator of an anti-LGBTQIA+ Facebook group Christian Lives Matter, posted a video taken by protesters with the supportive caption: “Huge turnout with the boys praying powerful rosary in Newtown tonight. #christianlivesmatter”.
Bakhos has denied on social media that he attended the protest or that he or his group were involved in organising it.
For half a decade, Bakhos and his Facebook group have played a role in amplifying anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment and calling for action against people perceived to have disrespected their Christian beliefs. Bakhos has endorsed increasingly frequent acts of vandalism during WorldPride.
Bakhos did not respond to a request for comment, instead blocking this reporter and this publication’s Instagram accounts when approached.
Who is Charlie Bakhos and what is Christian Lives Matter?
Christian Lives Matter is a Facebook group with more than 25,000 members that was started in 2017. Bakhos, whose Facebook profile lists him as being from Beirut, Lebanon, and has spoken at Maronite Catholic churches in Sydney’s southwest, is the group’s only administrator and uses the online community to mostly broadcast his messages about “defending the faith”.
Ostensibly created out of a concern that “Christian brothers and sisters [are] being persecuted in the Middle East”, the group grew in the lead-up to the same-sex marriage postal survey. Bakhos frequently campaigns against LGBTQIA+ causes and supports anti-LGBTQIA+ figures, accusing the LGBTQIA+ community of “mocking God”.
Bakhos has also promoted other fringe views. He was opposed to COVID-19 vaccinations, citing his religious beliefs, and organised a petition to Parliament against “Experimental vaccines being tested for COVID-19 virus Is going against the Nuremberg Code if made mandatory.”
He also accused Meta of blocking posts “linking many world leaders especially many of our American ones including Clinton, Obama, Biden and co as well as Hollywood to their pedo [paedophile] rings which Trump has been trying to expose”, a belief that forms the basis of the QAnon conspiracy.
Since the group started, Bakhos has frequently targeted murals. In 2017, he used his Facebook group to criticise a mural by Scott Marsh depicting singer George Michael as a saint: “WE CALL UPON all the people of Australia from ALL RACES, RELIGIONS, SEXUALITY and GENDER to ACT URGENTLY”.
When the mural was vandalised that night, Bakhos posted a video of someone painting over it and celebrated its destruction: “What legends cleaning the streets of Sydney from porn, discriminating against Christians.” Benjamin Gittany was later charged for the act and later found guilty for malicious damage. OutinPerth reported that police were investigating death threats made against the sentencing magistrate on Christian Live Matter.
Over the past two weeks, Bakhos has also posted about a pair of murals for Sydney WorldPride that were subsequently vandalised. Both times, Bakhos has shared footage of the vandals ruining the murals or the destroyed murals afterwards with messages of support. Crikey is not suggesting that Bakhos was involved in the vandalism of the murals.
Bakhos has also organised protests against Australian public figures, businesses and groups that he claims are not respecting Christianity, often pressuring them into apologising.
In 2019, Kyle Sandilands and his radio station KIIS’ owner Australian Radio Network apologised in response to a Bakhos-fuelled campaign about the shock jock’s comments that the Virgin Mary was a “liar” who got knocked up “behind a camel shed”. In 2021, Bakhos’ Christian Lives Matter tried to drown out a LGBTQIA+ concert on Cathedral Square, opposite the St Mary’s Cathedral.
And most recently, Bakhos has led a campaign against The Project and comedian Reuben Kaye for an X-rated Jesus joke. The controversial joke fuelled interest in Bakhos’ online organising, which he recently moved over to WhatsApp and Zoom. He claims that “1500+” attended a call on Thursday night where they decided on forthcoming protests outside of the Ten Network’s headquarters and Hyde Park.
‘One of them got past security, entered the pub, and grabbed a mate of mine by the head’
Despite Bakhos claiming Friday night’s protest was “peaceful”, others claim to have been targeted by the group.
Malcolm Grant alleges one of his friends was assaulted by a member of the group of protesters.
They were in the Bank Hotel in Newtown on Friday night when the protest group initially passed.
“They threw some light stuff (it might have been popcorn) through a window at us, so we clapped back at them. I responded with ‘I love dick!’,” he told Crikey via email.
Grant said that “20 or 30 minutes later”, the group came back.
“A group of them lunged through the open window and tried to make contact with us. The police finally acted by forming a barrier between the open window and them. Up until this point it hadn’t seemed like the police were attempting to do anything to ‘manage’ them,” he said.
“One of them got past security, entered the pub and grabbed a mate of mine by the head. The guy was removed (I don’t know whether it was security or the police).”
NSW Police issued a statement saying that “officers attached to Inner West Police Area Command, along with specialist police resources attended King Street, Newtown, in relation to unauthorised protest activity”.
Police also said that they are investigating an alleged assault at a venue and connections with the protest.
In a video posted to his Instagram on Monday morning, Bakhos claimed that the “police had spoken to him beforehand” but that he wasn’t involved in organising it. Another of his posts, this time on Facebook, promised that this was going to change.
“I never organised or attendeded [sic] this but I will be attending the future Protests that are being organised God willing.”
Charlie Bakhos and his Christian Lives Matter fanboyz have disrespected Christian beliefs. They should be vandalising and vilifying themselves. From what I recall, a major tenet of Christianity is: ‘judge not, lest ye be judged thyself’. Another is: ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’. No caveats, no exceptions.
And last but not least: “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”
These creeps go to Mass one morning a week and hate their neighbour the rest of the time.
Yes. Like a good Christian. This is what being a good Christian i all about. They are all Maude Flanderses. Spending their weekends away at a Bible camp, learning how to be more judgemental.
You’re thinking of Helen Lovejoy, but the point stands
Really? How about Romans 1:26-27, where the founder of Christianity says that gays AND lesbians “deserve death”. And it’s the first subject he addresses in the first epistle, so obviously given high priority.
It’s about idolatry, not cake and sodomy.
The founder of Christianity? So, an anti-gay bigot founded christianity? And here’s me thinking it was Jesus… who NEVER said anything against gay people.
“The first subject he addresses”… well derrr.. he’s a bigot.
Most competent authorities agree that it was the Apostle Paul who ‘founded’ the movement on hearsay about someone he’d never met.
And Saul/Paul was without question a dangerous bigot and zealot.
Malcolm, don’t take what Paul wrote at face value. His intended meaning has been obscured by time.
Read some scholarly works that explore the historical contextual factors of his writings (and exclude the ‘Pauline’ epistles that weren’t actually written by Paul).
I recommend Burton Mack’s “Who Wrote the New Testament”
It’s an excellent and enlightening read.
Unfortunately, reasoning with Christians using the bible is mostly futile. They always find some other bs in that dusty, old motel pamphlet to justify their hate.
They probably think Jesus’ was just trying to be first when he said words to the effect those without sin can cast the first stone.
Since when has that hoary old chestnut prevented Catholics and others of a religious persuasion from doing just that? I notice he also said to render to Caesar that which is owed to Caesar. The basis for the DLP and their Industrial Groups I would say.
The problem seems to be not that loonies like Bakhos and CLM exist, but that their influence is disproportionate to their size. When a large motor mouth like Sandilands has to apologize to a minnow like Christian Lives Matter, you have to wonder where the priorities of radio and TV stations actually lie. (Mea culpa; a small part of me would like to see Sandilands do the ‘walk of shame’ a la Game of Thrones).
I hope that if any one of them set foot on a road they would have been arrested for protesting illegally on a public road, like that poor climate activist was.
If this minority mob of Mennonite Catholics are fanning grievance and social violence against vulnerable people, they should be on the radar of authorities responsible for tracking and preventing terrorism. Surely?
One would certainly hope so, Vilma.
Maronite Catholics are not Mennonites
Mennonites are yet another Protestant sect out of the early Anabaptists.
The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons of Friesland.
Some Maronites in Lebanon were Phalangists – basically fascists who committed mass murder in the Lebanese Civil War. I wonder whether any of these Christian Lives Matter people are the children or grandchildren of Phalangists.
The Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon of between 460 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiite, was done by a Lebanese militia that were in fact Maronite Christians under the command of Elie Hobeika. It committed the atrocities in the Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut
The widespread massacre was carried out by the Maronite militia, while the IDF that had the camp surrounded orderedaronite Militia to clear the camp of PLO fighters out of Sabra and Shatila, as part of the IDF plan in Beirut.
As the massacre took place, the IDF received reports of such but did not take any action to prevent or stop the massacre.
If it was an unauthorised protest, why did the police allow them to continue their march? Surely that can’t be legal.
The problem for the police Gabrielle is that they need to be extremely careful when they come across people with a foreign background committing an offense. You must know as well as I do, that there is a major risk that they will be accused of ‘racial profiling’ or ‘racism’, etc. if they take any sort of action against such people.
And sometimes it’s just going to end in an all in brawl with possible serious injuries to people. The cops are not to blame.
“The cops are not to blame”
…yeah.. they just bust down the doors and arrest climate protesters in the middle of the night… because there’s no danger to their officers from non-violent female climate protesters, right?
Unfortunately, that is correct
Police de-escalated the situation. That’s not unusual.
Yeah… like they did to the “Black Lives Matter” protest… oh wait… they herded the protesters into a corner and beat the sh*t out of them…
Is that the kind of “de-escalation” you mean?
Which particular BLM protest are you referring to? If you’re referring to NYC, I am referring yo NSW Police . And yes, Police often de escalate, they don’t always and they should do it more often, that doesn’t mean it’s unusual for them to try to de escalate a situation.