Archbishop Desmond Tutu Photo By Chelsea Gulliver By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Mar 12 | Just a day after release of the United States Department of State Report on Human Rights Practises globally by over 149 countries listed in the document, Archbishop Emeritus & Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu published an Op-Ed column in today's Washington Post, in which the Archbishop condemned the current campaign of virulent homophobia across the African continent.
Archbishop Tutu wrote;
"Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God's family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms.Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.Uganda's parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi."
He also indicated that it was his opinion as a leading African religious leader that;
"Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity -- or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds"
Desmond Tutu is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. Read the full Op-Ed column here: [Link]
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