African clerics: Gay rights equal colonialism
A call for greater acceptance of gays and lesbians has put African and Western churches on a collision course, with some African clerics likening criticism from the United States and Europe to a new wave of colonization by the West.
Consider some of the statements at a news conference in late February led by Bishop Arthur Gitonga of the Redeemed Church in Kenya: “Homosexuality is equivalent to colonialism and slavery,” said one participant. “We feel it’s like a weapon of mass destruction,” said another. A third declared, “It is not biblical and cannot bring blessing to Christians.”
Gitonga, a powerful East African Pentecostal church official, is among a group of Kenyan leaders who have launched Zuia Sodom Kabisa, or (in Kiswahili) “Stop Sodom Completely.” The campaign seeks 1 million signatures to petition legislators to criminalize homosexual acts in Kenya.
