Desmond Tutu Calls on Uganda to Drop Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke to reporters at a conference in Kenya today, calling on Uganda to drop its anti-homosexuality bill, RNS reports:

“I am opposed to discrimination, that is unfair discrimination, and would that I could persuade legislators in Uganda to drop their draft legislation, because I think it is totally unjust,” Tutu told reporters here on Tuesday at the All Africa Conference of Churches meeting...

...“My brothers and sisters, you stood with people who were oppressed because of their skin color. If you are going to be true to the Lord you worship, you are also going to be there for the people who are being oppressed for something they can do nothing about: their sexual orientation,” he said.

Tutu said people do not choose their sexual orientation, and would be crazy to choose homosexuality “when you expose yourself to so much hatred, even to the extent of being killed.”

The bill could be debated and voted on at any time.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Put Blair And Bush On Trial

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the anti-apartheid warrior, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and general mensch, this weekend published an editorial in The Observer explaining his decision to pull out of a scheduled appearance at last week's Discovery Invest Leadership Summit, in Johannesburg. His reason: Tony Blair would be there. Tony Blair, according to Tutu, shouldn't be onstage in Johannesburg. He should be on trial at The Hague. George W. Bush, too. Probably some others.

Archbishop Tutu's editorial begins with a sentence that is neither grammatical nor historical:

The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Surely Archbishop Tutu means to say it was the conflict itself, and not its immorality, that did the "destabilising"? (And didn't the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war against Serbia in July, 1914, cause at least as much trouble?) Archbishop Tutu calms down a few paragraphs later, writing:

On what grounds do we decide that Robert Mugabe should go the International Criminal Court, Tony Blair should join the international speakers' circuit, bin Laden should be assassinated, but Iraq should be invaded, not because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, as Mr Bush's chief supporter, Mr Blair, confessed last week, but in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein?

The cost of the decision to rid Iraq of its by-all-accounts despotic and murderous leader has been staggering, beginning in Iraq itself. Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.

There are no satisfactory answers to Archbishop Tutu's questions, as a tired-sounding Tony Blair seems to acknowledge in his rebuttal:

I have a great respect for Archbishop Tutu's fight against apartheid – where we were on the same side of the argument – but to repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown.

And to say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre ... his slaughter of his political opponents, the treatment of the Marsh Arabs and the systematic torture of his people make the case for removing him morally strong. But the basis of action was as stated at the time.

In short, this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say. But surely in a healthy democracy people can agree to disagree.

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the Washington Post: "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."

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First gay bar outside of Ireland's major cities opens in Strabane, Northern Ireland. Rainbow Project leader: "What the opening of this bar is saying is that, yes, our small towns have a gay community too and they are welcome and they are valued. I have been a gay rights activist for 25 years and when I started out, gay people were moving away in their droves because they were deemed socially unacceptable. But now we have this development and it is one of the biggest steps I've seen for the gay community. What it is saying to us is stay, there is something here for you."

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Parents in Eau Claire, Wisconsin upset that a teacher told five health classes that she's gay: "At least one parent said Rowe had no business talking about her sexual preference. The parent agreed that Rowe is an outstanding teacher, but she should stick to the curriculum."

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Apologize for Anti-gay Persecution

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has been vocal of late in his criticism of the Anglican church and its homophobic policies towards gays, told BBC Radio Manchester's Gay Hour that he's sorry for the way that the church has treated gay people in the past.

Said Tutu: "I want to apologise to you and to all those who we in the church have persecuted. I’m sorry that we have been part of the persecution of a particular group. For me that is quite un-Christ like and, for that reason, it is unacceptable. May be even as a retired Archbishop I probably have, to some extent, a kind of authority but apart from anything let me say for myself and anyone who might want to align themselves with me, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the hurt, for the rejection, for the anguish that we have caused to such as yourselves."

Tutu recently called the church "extraordinarily homophobic" and "obsessed with questions of human sexuality" and continues to blast it over its rift with the Episcopal branch.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Church is "Extraordinarily Homophobic"

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in an interview to be aired Tuesday, slams his own church for focusing, shamefully, on homosexuality. It's not the first time he has expressed such a disappointment.

Says Tutu: "Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and AIDS - a devastating pandemic, and conflict...In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality...God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another."

According to reports, he also criticizes Rowan Williams, the archibishop of Canterbury, for failing to demonstrate that the Anglican church's God is one who is all-loving.

Added Tutu: "If God as they say is homophobic I wouldn't worship that God...It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race infected society. Why doesn't [Williams] demonstrate a particular attribute of God's which is that God is a welcoming God."

Previously
Archbishop Desmond Tutu Blasts Anglican Church Over Gay Rift [tr]