'Homosexuality is so unnatural. Even in the world of dogs, cows and lions, we don't hear of such things' - Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola
Amelia Hill and Cameron Duodo
Sunday June 22, 2003
The Observer
The leader of the world's largest Anglican communion threatened to widen an already bitter rift by declaring yesterday that homosexuality was so unnatural that it was not seen in the world of animals.
Peter Akinola, leader of the 17.5 million-strong church in Nigeria, hit out at the recent election in America of the first openly gay bishop.
'This is an attack on the Church of God - a Satanic attack on God's church,' he told the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper.
'I cannot think of how a man in his senses would be having a sexual relationship with another man. Even in the world of animals, dogs, cows, lions, we don't hear of such things.
'When we sit down globally as a communion, I am going to sit in a meeting with a man who is marrying a fellow man,' he added. 'I mean it's just not possible. I cannot see myself doing it.'
Akinola restated an earlier warning that he will precipitate a split between the Nigerian Church and the Church of England if it consecrates its first gay bishop, the self-avowed chaste homosexual Canon Jeffrey John. His attack sparked a furious response from gay rights campaigners in the Church, who have demanded a full apology before any further debate can take place.
'I see no reason why we should be subjected to such grotesque insults,' said Richard Kirker, of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. 'His words reveal a disgust and contempt for other people that is incompatible with Christianity.
'Unless he withdraws his inflammatory comments and apologises unreservedly, there can be no reconciliation or respect for someone who holds such beliefs.'
Kirker's views were backed by The Rev Richard Thomas, spokesman for the Oxford Diocese whose bishop, The Right Rev Richard Harries, recently sparked the furore over homosexuals in the Church by appointing Canon John as the suffragan bishop of Reading. 'One of the advantages of having the kind of dispute the Church is having in public is that it makes it very clear where people's theology stops and their prejudice begins,' said Thomas.
The Nigerian church has 17 million members, compared with the UK and US's combined congregation of just 2.3 million, with 81 bishops and 10 archbishops.
It severed ties earlier this month with the diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia, on Canada's Pacific coast, for authorising same-sex marriages. 'We hope that what we have done to Westminster will serve as a note of warning to the rest of the world to know that Nigeria will not stomach any such ugly development,' Akinola said.
Reform, the evangelical pressure group, defended Akinola's comments. 'The way people express themselves in their own culture comes across very differently in another culture,' said the Rev Rod Thomas, 'The fact that someone has not been totally careful in their language, shouldn't be allowed to detract from allowing the debate to happen.'
The dispute over the ordination of Canon John is also set to be heightened by the forthcoming publication of new guidelines hardening the Church's already highly conservative attitude towards sexuality.
The Church's current stance on homosexuality, as laid out in its 1991 statement Issues in Human Sexuality, says that although homosexuals - described as 'homophiles' - can be tolerated as church members, members of the clergy can have same-sex relationships only if they remain chaste.
Modernisers have long campaigned to have the report rewritten, claiming that despite its call on Christians to 'reject all forms of hatred of homosexual people', it has perpetuated historic discrimination.
But now the new guidelines are about to be published, a source close to the chair of the working party, The Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries, has told The Observer that it not only fails to offer the long-expected olive branch to modernisers, but it removes some of the few rights the original report conceded.
'When the working party reports later this year, the word is that it's going to be more conservative than the present position,' said the source. 'We will have to wait and see, but the word on the Church's streets is that the report is not going to be more liberal than it currently is and if anything, is going to be even more hardline.'
Although there are no indications as yet which rights could be removed or clamped down on, there are three areas where gay campaigners feel most at risk, namely the current position that allows them to have gay yet chaste relationships, the blessings they can have for their own same-sex relationships and the right to hold so-called 'marriages' for same-sex couples in their congregations. Campaigners for gay rights now believe that the Anglican Church will be signing its final death warrant if the new report attempts to row back on the few hard-won rights it grants.