Lebanon’s culture minister moved to ban the film “Barbie” from cinemas on Wednesday, saying it “promotes homosexuality” and contradicts religious values.

Minister Mohammad Mortada is backed by powerful Shi’ite armed group Hezbollah, whose head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has ramped up his rhetoric against the LGBT community, referring in a recent speech to Islamic texts that call for punishing offenders with death.

Mortada’s decision said the film was found to “promote homosexuality and sexual transformation” and “contradicts values of faith and morality” by diminishing the importance of the family unit.

Based on Mortada’s move, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi in turn asked General Security’s censorship committee, which falls under the interior ministry and is traditionally responsible for censorship decisions, to review the film and give its recommendation.

Kuwait followed in Lebanon’s footsteps later in the day, saying it had banned “Barbie” and supernatural horror film “Talk to Me” to protect “public ethics and social traditions”, the state news agency said.

Lebanon was the first Arab country to hold a gay pride week in 2017 and has generally been seen as a safe haven for the LGBT community in the broadly conservative Middle East.

But the issue has come into sharper focus recently, sparking tensions. Mawlawi last year took a decision to ban events “promoting sexual perversion” in Lebanon, understood to refer to LGBT-friendly gatherings.