News
2007-03-17
Desmond Tutu
likens antigay discrimination to apartheid
Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop
of Cape Town, South Africa, warned African churches again
Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop
of Cape Town, South Africa, warned African churches against
focusing too much on homosexuality while ignoring
major issues, reports the Episcopal News Service.
"I am deeply,
deeply distressed that in the face of the most
horrendous problems—we've got poverty, we've got
conflict and war, we've got HIV/AIDS—and what
do we concentrate on? We concentrate on what you are
doing in bed," Tutu told journalists in Nairobi,
Kenya, during the World Social Forum.
Tutu went on to
compare discrimination against gays to what black people
suffered under South Africa’s apartheid. "To penalize
someone because of their sexual orientation is like
what used to happen to us; to be penalized for
something which we could do nothing [about]—our
ethnicity, our race," said Tutu, according to the
Associated Press. "I would find it quite unacceptable
to condemn, persecute a minority that has already been
persecuted."
The worldwide
Anglican Communion has been divided by the issue of
homosexuality, with some dioceses cutting links with the
U.S. Episcopal Church. But three days after the close
of the WSF, the Reverend Samuel Njoroge of the
Anglican Church in Kenya expressed hope that tolerance
shown by Christian leaders could woo back gay and
lesbian parishioners.
"We need to
reexamine our doctrine on sexual matters," Tutu told
Ecumenical News International on January 29. "We have to
find how we approach the issue, but not throw them
[gays] out. As pastors, we are supposed to minister to
the good, bad, and ugly."
Sheikh Mohammed
Dor, leader of the Islamic Preachers of Kenya, took a
different position, demanding that the government crack down
on gays. "The Muslim community is against
homosexuality because the vice is ungodly. Both the
Quran and the Bible condemn it," Dor told Kenya's
Daily Nation newspaper on January 28. (The
Advocate)
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