The outspoken archbishop, Nobel prize winner, and human rights activist Desmond Tutu made the following remarks recently.
South Africa’s iconic retired archbishop, Desmond Tutu, said on Friday that if he had his pick, he’d go to hell before heading to a heaven that condemned homosexuality as sin.
“I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this,” he said, by way of denouncing religions that discriminate against gays, in Agence France-Presse.
He added, AFP reported: “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place.”
You’ve got to hand it to Tutu, the man speaks his mind. My daughter had the occasion to meet Tutu at a private party in South Africa and she said that he was a cheerful guy with an impish sense of humor.
South Africa is way ahead of the US is terms of gay rights. After its Constitutional Court ruled in 2005 that the common law definition of marriage should extend to same-sex couples based on the equal protection clause in their constitution, in 2006 their parliament passed by an overwhelming majority a law that legalized same sex marriage.
Young Republicans in the US are trying to shift their party on this issue:
On same-sex marriage and abortion, young GOP leaders say Republicans should tolerate a range of views, even while maintaining a socially conservative identity. Some of these activists say their party must tread lightly after the Supreme Court recently threw out the most powerful part of the Voting Rights Act, the law that became a major turning point in black Americans’ struggle for equal rights and political power.
“We don’t have to lose our principles,” said Angel Garcia, who leads the Young Republicans in Chicago, Obama’s hometown. “But we have to have a conversation on all these issues so we don’t leave Democrats to say we’re just old white men and racist, bigoted homophobes.”
But these young Republicans are going to have a tough time changing the party’s image. A Gallup Poll released today finds that while 52% of Americans would approve of such a national law today, when the vote is broken down, the only groups with a majority against legalizing same-sex marriage are people in the South, those 55 years and older, Protestants, conservatives, those who attend church weekly, and Republicans, though the last seems redundant since the other categories seem to practically define the party’s dominant groups.
You would think that if Tutu could entertain the idea of a homophobic god and come to the conclusion that he would not choose to associate with such a being that it’s probably easier to jettison all the mythology rather than trying to fit the square peg of an old testament god into the round hole of a new testament afterlife.
Either he’s playing to the audience that supports his lifestyle or his cognitive dissonance has been rachetted up to the breaking point.
I was registered Republican until the late ’90’s and was in favor of the moderate wing. The above is an opinion I held of the Republican Party since the Reagan years. I finally left and registered Independent as the Repubs moved farther and farther to the right, defining me more and more as a flaming liberal.
Though registered Independent, I end up these days voting an almost straight Dem ticket. This is because the Republicans are so b*tsh*t crazy these days, particularly in Oklahoma. Oklahomans will vote for the village idiot as long as he is registered Republican. Just look at our senators (Inhofe and Coburn) to see that the last sentence is true.
BTW…Hurray for Desmond Tutu, even if he is a theist.
Prof. Singham is on his game today, citing 3 prominent Israel bashers, Cole, Chomsky, and Tutu. Way to go professor.
Jesus, slc.
What a purist. The ONLY thing that matters is support for your favorite garrison apartheid state. Given that he grew up under one apartheid regime, how could you expect Tutu to love Israel anyway?
The French poet Charles Péguy wenr further. A devout Roman Catholic, he refused to go to confession or to have his sins absolved. If anyone atall went to hell, he was going too, he said.
A possible reason for South Africa’s legal toleration of gays is the fact that many of the white members and allies of the A.N.C. and the anti-apartheid movement, especially in the early days, were homosexual.
While that may be true in terms of the law, the practical experience of LGBT people in many parts of South Africa is something else entirely. Indeed, Archbishop Tutu made his remarks at an event launching a year-long attempt at public education to counter homophobia and transphobia. The very fact that such a campaign is thought necessary should tell us something about LGBT experiences in SA, but for more evidence we need only oogle “LGBT violence in South Africa”. Here’s just one result from Human Rights Watch.