Tutu: "Gays and Lesbians Across Africa Are Living in Fear"

Desmond Tutu, the Anglican archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts to end apartheid. Since then he's become a fierce LGBT ally. Writing an op-ed at the Washington Post, the archbishop slams the extreme state-sponsored terror campaign against gays in lesbians that has swept across Africa in the name of religion: "Show me where Christ said 'Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones.'"

Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear. And they are living in hiding—away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God.

"But they are sinners," I can hear the preachers and politicians say. "They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished." My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?

"Does God love his dark-skinned children less?"That's an excellent question posed by the Archbishop that needs to be repeated not only across Africa but in America as well.

Comments

[Kevin Perez]

I got the fuzzies after reading the article and this is coming from someone who has great disdain for religion.

[Kevin Perez]

One comment!?

[W. Lotus]

Wow...my respect for Bishop Tutu just went up even higher!

[ETIENNE]

Desmond Tutu is a true man of GOD...But we need more men and women like him from the African continent...Thx Rod for posting this

[David]

Uh oh. Someone's about to lose popularity. The Anglicans don't play, especially the High Anglicans. But good for Bishop Tutu. We need more allies like him!

[Honut Sinti]

This coincidentally brings to mind a bumper sticker I saw yesterday on the way to work. It read something to the effect:

"JESUS loves you even though Christians may not."

For some reason, my eyes started to tear up and I was too through.

Much respect to Bishop Tutu.

FYI: I ended up having a great day at work.

[Ravenback]

Truer words could not have been spoken by him. And to think there are those who say that we choose to be gay. I don't think so.

[MW09]

I love Desmond Tutu! What an amazing man! I'm so elated that he's an ally of ours. I wish there were many more people like him in all 53 African countries and around the world.

[Diva1961]

Bishop Tutu has been one of my heroes for a number of decades now. His openess and support has always been the reasons why.

[Pastor Michael-Vincent Crea]

17 March 2010

Peace to ALL!

I spoke with Bishop Tutu during an event in Harlem at the Riverside Church, whose sanctuary cannot match the size of his heart and soul in the service of Love.

Both as a pastor, that is a Good Shepherd, and a person, that is, a truly Divine-Human Being, which all of us are, he is a living saint, needing no one's 'hall of fame,' communion or elder board to say so.

His actions speak louder that words because his Word is Love, and where there is Love there is God!

Blessing, Bliss & Beauty of ALL Without Boundaries!

Michael-Vincent Crea, Pastor
www.oneworldlifesystems.org