Greenbelt Addresses Homosexuality in Africa Homosexual Activist Speaks at British Christian Festival

This is the second in a series of articles about talks held at the 2010 Greenbelt Festival in Britain. To read about Middle East speakers, please click here.

A prominent Christian festival in Britain that draws tens of thousands annually has stirred controversy by featuring a homosexual activist to present alongside theologians, Christian aid workers and academics.

The Greenbelt festival, which pairs popular performing arts acts alongside talks on social and political activism, is not a stranger to controversy. In 2009, openly partnered homosexual Episcopal Church Bishop Gene Robinson was invited to participate. Ultimately Robinson gave three talks at Greenbelt, which brought about criticism from the Church Mission Society and the reform group Anglican Mainstream over the lack of contrasting views at the Christian festival.

Anglican Mainstream again criticized the festival’s organizers in 2010, calling for a boycott of the event due to the invitation of homosexual activist Peter Tatchell.

“I’d perhaps like to begin by paying tribute to Anglican Mainstream for their attacks on me and Greenbelt, which have boosted ticket sales [cheering] and ensured such a successful Greenbelt,” Tatchell said, beginning his talk titled “The struggle for queer freedom in Africa.” Tatchell spoke before a crowd of about 500. An estimated 21,000 attended the festival, according to organizers.

Lamenting that “there is no major universal human rights convention which explicitly and specifically guarantees equal rights to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people,” the homosexual activist called for special protections on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

A Colonial Import?

About 70 countries criminalize homosexuality in all circumstances, according to Tatchell. The penalties range from a few years in prison all the way to execution for same sex relations in about seven countries. Forty six of 54 members of the British Commonwealth completely outlaw homosexual practices in all circumstances.

“When we look at the situation in so many countries around the world, we see that many of these homophobic laws were imposed by western nations in the colonial era,” Tatchell said. The homosexual activist claimed Africa was a common example, where he said the vast majority of countries which have laws against homosexuality had those laws imposed upon them by the British colonial administration in the 19th century.

“So they are not genuinely African laws, they are not authentically an expression of the indigenous people of those nations; they are laws that were imposed by a conquering imperial power,” Tatchell said. “The active legal persecution of LGBT people is primarily the result of colonial era laws.”

Tatchell argued that the “import of homophobia” was often ideologically underpinned by the work of Christian missionaries.

“When they came to Africa, they saw same-sex relations, and they often used the presence and sometimes acceptance of same-sex relations among indigenous peoples as a justification for their Christianizing and civilizing mission,” Tatchell asserted. “In the whole colonial narrative, racism and homophobia are bound together.”

Further explaining an alleged confluence between racism, colonialism, and homophobia, Tatchell said that African nations “now ostensibly independent” continued to enforce and uphold homophobic laws that were imposed upon them in the 19th century by Britain and other European powers. He did not explain why if such laws did not reflect African culture and values, they had not fallen into disuse.

Criticism of Christians

Tatchell did not limit his allegations to British colonial governments; he also went after the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion. Slamming Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola for “hounding” homosexual activist Davis Mac-Iyalla out of the Anglican Church, Tatchell also disdainfully referred to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Williams, Tatchell said, was going to “great lengths to appease” Akinola and keep his 17 million-member Church of Nigeria within the Anglican Communion.

“Archbishop Williams colluded with Archbishop Akinola at the very time that Davis Mac-Iyalla, a gay Christian, was being hounded out of the Anglican Church of Nigeria,” Tatchell alleged. “Not only hounded out, but subjected to death threats and violence, so that he had to come here to seek asylum, to save his life from the risk of violence and even murder.”

The Church of Nigeria has disputed Mac-Iyalla’s claims as fabrications and misrepresentations. Mac-Iyalla is connected with Changing Attitude, a joint British-Nigerian homosexual advocacy group which charges that traditionalist Anglicans are complicit in violence against homosexuals. In 2008 he launched a speaking tour of the United States funded by Episcopal Church homosexual groups.

Tatchell similarly claimed that the Anglican Church of Uganda had “stirred up” an anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda that included death penalty sentences for repeat homosexual offenses. Tatchell did not explain that the sentence was only an option if an HIV-positive adult engaged in sex acts with a minor, or that the Church of Uganda had publically opposed any death penalty provisions in the legislation. To date, the legislation has not moved in the Ugandan parliament and is not sponsored by the governing political party.

“Pastors from Pentecostal and other evangelical churches have openly urged ever greater repression of lesbian and gay people,” Tatchell said. “Much of this homophobic intention has been stirred up by evangelical Christians from the United States who have gone to Uganda to stir up a wave of hatred against gay people to project the idea that the greatest threat to Uganda is not poverty, not corruption, not militarization, not human rights abuses, not rigged elections, but homosexuality. A complete inversion of true moral priorities.”

Tatchell did have positive words for two Anglican bishops, retired Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu and former bishop Christopher Ssenyonjo of Uganda.

The British activist said that Ssenyonjo had paid a heavy price in standing up for homosexuals through the loss of his pension and his expulsion from the Church of Uganda, “condemning him to live in poverty in his old age.” The Church of Uganda disputes the charge, pointing out that the church does not offer a pension system through which Ssenyonjo could be deprived, and stating that he was deposed for unauthorized participation in the consecration of the bishop in the Charismatic Church of Uganda, a denomination that he himself helped found.

Ssenyonjo recently toured the United States at the expense of Integrity USA, the unofficial homosexual caucus in the Episcopal Church. Living with friends in Maryland, Ssenyonjo has spoken at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., and marched in New York City’s gay pride parade alongside Episcopal Church leaders. He continues to describe himself as an Anglican bishop.