The Chinese police have banned a homosexual "culture" festival at the capital as Christian groups are alarmed by the gaining acceptance of homosexuality in China.

On Friday evening, the first ever homosexual "culture" festival in China was to be held at Beijing, which included a weekend of films, plays, exhibitions and seminars on the issue of homosexuality. Since the local Chinese police have received the report, they have raided the opening reception, according to Reuters.

The Hong Kong-based newspaper Wen Wei Pao reported that the organizers of the "culture" festival have spent a few months preparing for the event. The location of the event has already been changed as the organizers have heard about the police’s actions, but the police have not given up the attempt to stop the event.

"They didn't have permission to hold this event," a police official surnamed He told Reuters.

Another police official, however, claimed that the venue of the "culture" festival has not met the fire safety standard, according to Wen Wei Pao.

Similar shut-down action was taken by the police earlier this year when a gay-themed film festival was to be held at Beijing University, sources say.

In Mainland China, same-sex relationships are traditionally regarded as immoral and unethical. In 2001, China published a third version of its classification and diagnosis criteria of mental disorders, excluding homosexuality from the list. Many reports have showed that homosexuality is increasingly being accepted as normal in the recent years. In addition, many homosexuals are more opened to reveal their sexual orientation, so called "coming out from the wardrobe".

In Hong Kong, similar trend has been observed over the last 10 years. Churches and Christian organizations are challenged by the liberal movement and have been trying to fight against it with Christian teachings.

In a statement released by the Society for Truth and Light, a very outspoken Hong Kong-based Christian organization on the homosexuality issue, homosexual acts are contradictory to the will of God. The organization holds that same-sex orientation completely opposes the law of God’s creation; many homosexuals are therefore fallen into temptation and commit sexual sins.

The organization strongly defends "one man and one woman" traditional marriage, stating that same-sex marriage and child adoption by homosexual couples are unacceptable because they break the holiness of marriage.

Meanwhile, the crisis over homosexuality is spreading among the well-educated citizens in major developed cities in Mainland China such as Beijing and Shanghai, sources say. In September, Professor Gao Yanning with Shanghai’s Fudan University Institute of Public Health has began giving social science lectures concerning homosexual health while Associate Professor Sun Zhongxin from Fudan’s Sociology started a course entitled "Homosexual Research", according to the China Daily.

Official statistics suggest there are approximately 30 million homosexuals on the mainland, but few are willing to acknowledge their sexuality, the China Daily added.

"On the mainland, 80 to 90 percent of homosexuals are prepared to marry or have married the opposite sex. In Western nations, the proportion is only 10 percent," Professor Gao of Fudan University told the China Daily.