Friday, March 16, 2007

AnglicanArchbishops are clearer on gays than the Democratic candidates for president.




People have been more than a little annoyed with the eagerness of the likes of Clinton, Obama, and Edwards to not jump to the defense of the gay community.


It seems the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate,Desmond Tutu, has a stronger opinion.


His take:

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, has warned African churches against paying too much attention to the issue of homosexuality while ignoring real problems facing the continent."

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 during the World Social Forum.

***

Tutu likened discrimination against homosexuals to that faced by black people under South Africa's racist apartheid policies.

"To penalise someone because of their sexual orientation is like what used to happen to us; to be penalised for something which we could do nothing [about] -- our ethnicity, our race," said Tutu. "I would find it quite unacceptable to condemn, persecute a minority that has already been persecuted."


This is especially interesting in light of attitudes towards gays coming from many Southern Baptist. I have seen a number of Baptist who have disdain for homosexuals. And they get very angry to hear ANY comparison to the struggles of blacks in the US. It is an unfortunate intolerance of a group who are being put upon, but that many just don't like. Now many Baptists are supportive of the gay community, but fora many vocal opponents their is a sense that gays are a minority that deserves it.

Tutu disagrees.

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