My analysis
It is un ethical and a lack of Ubuntu to persecute and criminalize gays just as it is equally unethical to persecute and criminalize cigarette smokers and alcoholics. Like smokers , gays are struggling with a habit they have been socialized into . We must tolerate them just like we tolerate smokers. However, tolerating gays is not synonymous with condoning what they do. Society must put in place interventions(based on love and not hatred) aimed at de-socializing gays from this habit or socialization. The Ugandan Society has a duty to resist the recruitment of children and adults into homosexuality using monetary enticements. Any homosexual who sodomises a minor must face the law. In Uganda we do not need a new Law to fight homosexuality. Of course God does not discriminate, but this should not give a lee way to gays and Muslims to stubbornly refuse to be born again while thinking that God is so loving so much so that he will and can not send any one to hell. It is not written any where in the scriptures that Christians are not better than Muslims or that gays are not better than those that are straight. Scriptures says categorically that those who do not have the son do not have life(1 John 5:11). You can not have the son(be born again) and continue being gay.
Bishop Tutu’s Confused theology
Bishop Tutu opines that ,
"It is with supreme sorrow that I witness, to this day, the subjugation
and repression of African brother and sisters whose only crime is the practice
of love,"….. "Hate, in any form or
shape, has no place in the house of God." ……God says love one another;
love your neighbor. God is for freedom, equality and love.’’ It true God
told us to love one another and calls a hater of a brother a murderer( 1 John 3:15). However God does
not consider the sexual relationship between a man and man or between a woman
and woman as love. This is actually a perversion of love. Any person who
lives the homosexual to wallow in his or
her sodomy or lesbian sin does not have
the TRUE LOVE OF GOD. Any loving born again
Christian can not compromise with sin because the wages of sin is death and
dying in sin leads to hell. Of course true Christians should never use
municipal law to fight sin. Thus , Bishop Desmond Tutu’s theology is very
confused.
Food for thought
During the 2011 Girl power conference at
Miracle center cathedral, Pastors Robert and Jessica Kayanja made four cakes;
one four the Catholics, another for the Pentecostals, one for the Anglicans and
another for people of other faiths. During the whole conference, there was no
call for Catholics and Anglicans to get saved.
Now, was this love or satanic ecumenism disguising as love .
To Ugandan MPs: God does not discriminate among our family
http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/To-Ugandan-MPs--God-does-not-discriminate-among-our-family/-/689364/1641946/-/v9anyg/-/index.html
By Desmond Tutu
Posted Wednesday, December 12 2012 at 02:00
Posted Wednesday, December 12 2012 at 02:00
In Summary
God does not say black is better than white, or tall
is better than short, or football players are better than basketball players,
or Christians are better than Muslims… or gay is better than straight. No. God
says love one another; love your neighbour. God is for freedom, equality and
love.Should the Anti-Homosexuality Bill be voted into law, it will criminalise acts of love between certain categories of people, just as the apartheid government made intimate relations between black and white South Africans a punishable offence.
Members of the apartheid police force charged with the upkeep of “morality” would rush into the bedrooms of suspected offenders to gather evidence, such as warm bed sheets. Those found guilty were arrested, put on trial and punished. What awaits the people of Uganda?
One thing that Ugandan legislators should know is that God does not discriminate among members of our family. God does not say black is better than white, or tall is better than short, or football players are better than basketball players, or Christians are better than Muslims… or gay is better than straight. No. God says love one another; love your neighbour. God is for freedom, equality and love.
People have over many centuries devised all kinds of terrible instruments to oppress other people. Usually, they have rationalised their awful actions on the basis of their belief in their own superiority, in their culture, in their spiritual beliefs, in their skin-colour. Thus, they argue, they are justified to hate and bomb and maim the “other”.
The Anti-Homosexuality legislation now under consideration in Uganda is just such an instrument.
Nelson Mandela said, “No one is born hating another person”. If people are taught and can learn to hate, they can learn to love.
Many times in my life, I have been blessed to witness the innate capacity of our human family to reconcile differences. The common denominator in all these transactions is recognition that the notion of equal rights in any family, in any society, is non-negotiable. No sane person or group of people can sustainably argue that their rights should be more equal than others.
If what I am told is true, that the Anti-Homosexuality legislation in Uganda has widespread popular support, it should surely be the moral duty of the custodians of that country to educate its citizens about discrimination and equal rights. Surely, it should be their duty to clarify the fundamental misunderstandings in communities about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI).
The depiction of members of the LGBTI community as crazed and depraved monsters threatening the welfare of children and families is simply untrue, and is reminiscent of what we experienced under apartheid and what the Jews experienced at the hands of the Nazis.
To those who claim that homosexuality is not part of our African culture, you are conveniently ignoring the fact that LGBTI Africans have lived peacefully and productively beside us throughout history.
I am proud that in South Africa, when we succeeded in overthrowing apartheid, we put in place a Constitution that prohibited all forms of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
We did this because we understood that the freedom of one depends upon the freedom of all. We call it the spirit of ubuntu: the idea that I cannot be free if you are not also free.
A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, and does not feel threatened by others’ differences, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
The ideology of racial superiority that was once used to justify the colonisation of our lands is part of our recent history. Today, we face a new challenge. We must overcome the notion that sexual orientation defines one’s identity or determines one’s station in life – or unjustly elevates one class of people over another.
It is with supreme sorrow that I witness, to this day, the subjugation and repression of African brothers and sisters whose only crime is the practice of love. Hate, in any form or shape, has no place in the house of God.
Love comes more naturally to the human heart than hate.
Desmond Tutu is the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa and a reknown anti-apartheid leader.
Desmond Tutu Tells Ugandan MPs 'God Does Not Discriminate'
In a powerful op-ed in Uganda's daily newspaper, the Nobel
Peace Prize winner urges Ugandan members of parliament to reject the so-called
Kill The Gays bill.
December 12 2012 6:15 PM ET
Desmond Tutu, the archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South
Africa, penned a poignant op-ed Wednesday calling on Uganda's members of
parliament to stand up for the oppressed and reject the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would prescribe long-term
imprisonment and even death for some LGBT people. The bill has been positioned
at the top of Parliament's list of "business to follow" for several
weeks, and Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told reporters in November that she wants
the bill passed as a "Christmas present" to Ugandans who are
"demanding it."
The Rev. Tutu, who rose to sociopolitical prominence fighting to
end the racial segregation of apartheid in South Africa, implored Ugandan
leaders and laypeople to turn away from the hateful legislation.
"One thing that Ugandan legislators should know is that God
does not discriminate among members of our family," writes Tutu. "God
does not say black is better than white, or tall is better than short, or
football players are better than basketball players, or Christians are better
than Muslims… Or gay is better than straight. No. God says love one another;
love your neighbor. God is for freedom, equality, and love."
In the editorial published in Ugandan newspaper The Daily Monitor, Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner,
compared Uganda's so-called
Kill The Gays bill to South
Africa's apartheid and the mass
extermination of Jewish people under the Nazi party.
"It is with supreme sorrow that I
witness, to this day, the subjugation and repression of African brother and
sisters whose only crime is the practice of love," writes Tutu.
"Hate, in any form or shape, has no place in the house of God."
Tutu also challenges the notion that LGBTI Africans are a product
of Western influence, pointing out that "LGBTI Africans have lived
peacefully and productively beside us throughout history."