A Christian Colombian couple who created a ‘gay’ nativity scene in their apartment are now facing death threats.

Andrés VÃ¡squez and Felipe CÃ¡rdenas decorated their BogÃ³ta home with a Christmas scene featuring a baby Jesus in a manger, but with no Virgin Mary and two Josephs.

After a Colombian newspaper wrote about the controversial picture last week, the national Catholic Church issued a statement condemning the display as ‘sacrilege’.

Speaking to Gay Star News, VÃ¡squez said he was surprised there had been a big outrage. After all, he had posted it on his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the picture is from December 2011.

‘Before that, nobody, just my close friends, knew about it. It was never a scandal until the Colombian media created one,’ he said.

VÃ¡squez believes the conservative media are trying to drum up anti-gay feelings in the country, with the hopes that the government will not pass a same-sex marriage law.

He said: ‘After [the report] I’ve been receiving a lot of threat mails and posts. I’ve been so confused. How can they threaten me? Not just to censor it, but many of those called to kill me.

‘At this time I’m feeling very unsafe and at this point any crazy fanatic could get a gun and shoot me.’

But, as a Christian, he believes the Jesus family is the representation of all families in the world.

VÃ¡squez said: ‘There are families with a father and a mother, there are other families with two dads or two moms.

‘The nativity scene is more than a religious representation. It is the way the world gets together every year to remember family values, it doesn’t matter if the family’s parents are straight or gay.’

Colombia’s same-sex marriage bill is in the first stage of making its way through government, with the hope it will be legalized early 2013.