The Paris Olympics opening ceremony was a "disgusting" attack on humanity's sacred values and requires a call to Pope Francis "at the first opportunity" to discuss the offence caused to Christians and the imposition of the "LGBT lobby", according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan spoke out on July 30 after some Christian groups and conservative politicians described how they were angered by a kitsch scene of the opening ceremony that seemed to parody Leonardo da Vinci's famous "Last Supper" painting of Jesus Christ and his disciples—although art experts later said the tableau, featuring drag queens, was in fact based on a painting of the Greek Olympian gods at a pagan feast, with the god of wine and ecstasy Dionysus arriving at the table.

Still, Erdogan was in the mood to bung in some of his familiar hand grenades of angry rhetoric, telling members of his ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara that the Olympics opened "with animosity towards humanity, creation, and the values that make humans human".

The "LGBT lobby", he added, had taken Europe and the West "hostage" through a "global atmosphere of fear".

Some commentators see Erdogan’s bid to be a commanding voice on the international scene as having met with little but derision of late, with Israel last week depicting him on social media as a toddler in Iran’s lap (though that particular reading, while provocative, bears no relation to reality) and Greece mocking his “junk” fighter jets in contrast to the gleaming F-35s bought by Athens. On July 28, Erdogan obliquely referred to Turkey considering possible military action against Israel over the Gaza war—the threat didn’t get far in terms of big headlines, with most international media assessing it as almost certainly brash, empty words, while the Israelis responded by implying Erdogan is now on a Saddam Hussein-like path that could lead to his eventual execution.

At home, the Turks, suffering Erdogan-approved economic shock therapy that is making 2024 the most trying in a generation for much of the population, are currently distracted by an almighty row over whether the government is or is not about to “murder” millions of stray dogs on Turkey’s streets.

Further distraction is now to be had from Erdogan taking aim at the Olympics opening, with the LGBT target, an old favourite of the bully pulpit, offering Turkey’s leader and his populist cheerleaders some handy leverage.

Homosexuality is not a crime in Turkey, but hostility to it is widespread. Police crackdowns on Pride parades have become increasingly aggressive.

Interestingly, Erdogan has been seen to tolerate the gay movement inside his own party. A group called AK LGBTI+ has supported the AKP.

Istanbul’s LGBTI+ community was a leading contributor to the Gezi popular protests in 2013 and Istanbul Pride has been banned by the Erdogan administration ever since, together with any other kind of protests in the country.

In 2021, the US Biden administration issued a mild rebuke when Turkey’s then interior minister Suleyman Soylu resorted to calling student protesters “LGBT deviants”.