Post by Bozur on Dec 19, 2005 4:28:21 GMT -5
Nigerian Anglicans Seeing Gay Challenge to Orthodoxy
By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: December 18, 2005
ABUJA, Nigeria - At one end of town on a fall Saturday morning, in a soaring cathedral nestled in a tidy suburb, dozens of Nigeria's most powerful citizens gathered, their Mercedes, Porsche and Range Rover sport utility vehicles gleaming in a packed parking lot. The well-heeled crowd was there to celebrate the Eucharist with the leader of Nigeria's Anglican Church, Archbishop Peter J. Akinola.
Michael Kamber for The New York Times
A recent service at an Anglican church in Abuja, Nigeria. The Nigerian Anglican Church objects to efforts to accommodate homosexuality.
At the other end of town, in a small clubhouse behind a cultural center, a decidedly more downscale and secretive gathering of Anglicans got under way: the first national meeting of a group called Changing Attitudes Nigeria. Its unassuming name, and the secrecy accompanying its meeting - the location was given to a visitor only after many assurances that it would not be revealed to anyone else - underscored the radical nature of the group's mission: to fight for acceptance of homosexuals in the Anglican Church in Nigeria.
"We want to tell the bishop that it is our church, too," said Davis Mac-Iyalla, a 33-year-old former teacher who founded the group, which claims to have hundreds of members. "They do not own the word of Jesus. It belongs to all of us."
The worldwide Anglican communion of 77 million people faces a serious possibility of schism over the issue of homosexuality. Anglican leaders from the developing world, led in large part by Archbishop Akinola, have objected bitterly to the 2003 ordination of an openly gay bishop by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, and to the Anglican Church's blessing of same-sex marriages in Canada. Many church leaders from Africa, Asia and Latin America think that tolerance of gays is a repudiation of biblical orthodoxy, seeing it in light of a series of disputes with the Western arms of their faith over the last 35 years, notably the ordination of women.
National churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America have severely limited contact and cooperation with their North American counterparts. Archbishop Akinola argues that the churches of the "global south," as the Christian population of the developing world is often called, are standing up for orthodoxy in the face of increasing liberalism in the West, where homosexuality is less taboo. "It cannot be supported by scripture, it is against reason," Archbishop Akinola said. "It is against nature. So we in the global south stand against it."
The Anglican debate has largely played out as one between traditional African values and what many people call the decadence of the West. As one Anglican, Chimae Ikegwuru of Port Harcourt, put it: "Homosexuality is a Western thing. In Nigeria we don't condone it, we don't tolerate it."
Nigeria's gay men and lesbians regularly face harassment and arrest, gay activists here say. The criminal code bans acts "against the order of nature," and imposes sentences of up to 14 years for those convicted. In practice, gay men are often arrested and jailed until they can bribe their jailers to let them go. In areas of Nigeria that adhere to Islamic law, Shariah, the sentence for homosexual acts is death.
Yet homosexuality is relatively common, particularly in the military, which dominated the country's politics for decades, said Dare Odumuye, founder of Nigeria's first gay rights organization, Alliance Rights Nigeria. "It has always been in our culture in Nigeria," he said.
Still, in a country riven by corruption and strife, and perpetually perched on the edge of chaos, deeply conservative religious beliefs and literal readings of not only the Bible but also the Koran offer certainty and stability otherwise unavailable.
"The Bible and the creeds don't lend themselves to any variation over time," said Oluranti Odubogun, general secretary of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. "They don't subject themselves to cultural changes. They are guidance given for human existence from age to age." But that desire for certainty and absolutism has run up against another powerful force, the wider struggle for self-determination, particularly among young people in Africa.
"There is a growth in identity-based movements, and there is an impact of the global gay identity where people throughout the world are seeing themselves as part of a larger global movement," said Cary Alan Johnson, senior specialist for Africa at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. "But the movement is embattled. The more people say, 'This is who we are,' the more governments have a tendency to want to crack down."
Indeed, in October, Mr. Mac-Iyalla and several other members of Changing Attitudes Nigeria were arrested after their first meeting, which drew several dozen people, after police officers found literature for the meeting in their car. Mr. Mac-Iyalla said he was kicked in the head by one of the officers, and he spent several days in jail without being charged or taken before a judge, although that is not unusual for people arrested in Nigeria. "There was no reason to arrest us other than that we were openly gay," he said.
Mr. Mac-Iyalla said he started the group after being fired from his job as a teacher at an Anglican school when the principal learned he was gay. "I have loved the Anglican Church all my life," Mr. Mac-Iyalla said. "The church leaders can try to claim that we don't exist, but we gay Anglicans of Nigeria will stand up to say we are here."
With the exception of South Africa, whose Constitution provides protections for gay men and lesbians and whose courts recently ruled that gays must be permitted to marry, gay people in many African countries are forced underground by social taboos and laws. Many African countries have laws against sex between people of the same sex. In Cameroon, 11 men have been in jail for seven months on sodomy charges and may be forced to undergo a medical examination to determine whether they engaged in anal sex. Human rights groups say such exams are humiliating and inhumane.
By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: December 18, 2005
ABUJA, Nigeria - At one end of town on a fall Saturday morning, in a soaring cathedral nestled in a tidy suburb, dozens of Nigeria's most powerful citizens gathered, their Mercedes, Porsche and Range Rover sport utility vehicles gleaming in a packed parking lot. The well-heeled crowd was there to celebrate the Eucharist with the leader of Nigeria's Anglican Church, Archbishop Peter J. Akinola.
Michael Kamber for The New York Times
A recent service at an Anglican church in Abuja, Nigeria. The Nigerian Anglican Church objects to efforts to accommodate homosexuality.
At the other end of town, in a small clubhouse behind a cultural center, a decidedly more downscale and secretive gathering of Anglicans got under way: the first national meeting of a group called Changing Attitudes Nigeria. Its unassuming name, and the secrecy accompanying its meeting - the location was given to a visitor only after many assurances that it would not be revealed to anyone else - underscored the radical nature of the group's mission: to fight for acceptance of homosexuals in the Anglican Church in Nigeria.
"We want to tell the bishop that it is our church, too," said Davis Mac-Iyalla, a 33-year-old former teacher who founded the group, which claims to have hundreds of members. "They do not own the word of Jesus. It belongs to all of us."
The worldwide Anglican communion of 77 million people faces a serious possibility of schism over the issue of homosexuality. Anglican leaders from the developing world, led in large part by Archbishop Akinola, have objected bitterly to the 2003 ordination of an openly gay bishop by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, and to the Anglican Church's blessing of same-sex marriages in Canada. Many church leaders from Africa, Asia and Latin America think that tolerance of gays is a repudiation of biblical orthodoxy, seeing it in light of a series of disputes with the Western arms of their faith over the last 35 years, notably the ordination of women.
National churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America have severely limited contact and cooperation with their North American counterparts. Archbishop Akinola argues that the churches of the "global south," as the Christian population of the developing world is often called, are standing up for orthodoxy in the face of increasing liberalism in the West, where homosexuality is less taboo. "It cannot be supported by scripture, it is against reason," Archbishop Akinola said. "It is against nature. So we in the global south stand against it."
The Anglican debate has largely played out as one between traditional African values and what many people call the decadence of the West. As one Anglican, Chimae Ikegwuru of Port Harcourt, put it: "Homosexuality is a Western thing. In Nigeria we don't condone it, we don't tolerate it."
Nigeria's gay men and lesbians regularly face harassment and arrest, gay activists here say. The criminal code bans acts "against the order of nature," and imposes sentences of up to 14 years for those convicted. In practice, gay men are often arrested and jailed until they can bribe their jailers to let them go. In areas of Nigeria that adhere to Islamic law, Shariah, the sentence for homosexual acts is death.
Yet homosexuality is relatively common, particularly in the military, which dominated the country's politics for decades, said Dare Odumuye, founder of Nigeria's first gay rights organization, Alliance Rights Nigeria. "It has always been in our culture in Nigeria," he said.
Still, in a country riven by corruption and strife, and perpetually perched on the edge of chaos, deeply conservative religious beliefs and literal readings of not only the Bible but also the Koran offer certainty and stability otherwise unavailable.
"The Bible and the creeds don't lend themselves to any variation over time," said Oluranti Odubogun, general secretary of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. "They don't subject themselves to cultural changes. They are guidance given for human existence from age to age." But that desire for certainty and absolutism has run up against another powerful force, the wider struggle for self-determination, particularly among young people in Africa.
"There is a growth in identity-based movements, and there is an impact of the global gay identity where people throughout the world are seeing themselves as part of a larger global movement," said Cary Alan Johnson, senior specialist for Africa at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. "But the movement is embattled. The more people say, 'This is who we are,' the more governments have a tendency to want to crack down."
Indeed, in October, Mr. Mac-Iyalla and several other members of Changing Attitudes Nigeria were arrested after their first meeting, which drew several dozen people, after police officers found literature for the meeting in their car. Mr. Mac-Iyalla said he was kicked in the head by one of the officers, and he spent several days in jail without being charged or taken before a judge, although that is not unusual for people arrested in Nigeria. "There was no reason to arrest us other than that we were openly gay," he said.
Mr. Mac-Iyalla said he started the group after being fired from his job as a teacher at an Anglican school when the principal learned he was gay. "I have loved the Anglican Church all my life," Mr. Mac-Iyalla said. "The church leaders can try to claim that we don't exist, but we gay Anglicans of Nigeria will stand up to say we are here."
With the exception of South Africa, whose Constitution provides protections for gay men and lesbians and whose courts recently ruled that gays must be permitted to marry, gay people in many African countries are forced underground by social taboos and laws. Many African countries have laws against sex between people of the same sex. In Cameroon, 11 men have been in jail for seven months on sodomy charges and may be forced to undergo a medical examination to determine whether they engaged in anal sex. Human rights groups say such exams are humiliating and inhumane.