Where Life Is Getting Worse for LGBT People

As LGBT Americans gather for Thanksgiving this year, in many cases a pall will color the celebration as we await for the other shoes to fall in the wake of Donald Trump's election and the elevation of homophobes and Christofascists to positions where they can harm and undermine the lives of the LGBT community.  Sadly, this trend is not unique to America and defeating it will require renewed resolve and efforts to resist and defeat the pestilence of fundamentalist religion and the hatred that it promotes.   As we have seen over and over again, religion is the principle threat to human rights and a never ending justification for evil and hatred. A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the negative, animus inspired trend in other parts of the world.  Here are highlights:

The moral arc of history bends toward justice. Right?

Not necessarily, especially when it comes to justice for LGBTQ people and other sexual and gender minorities. Here in the United States, recent gains are now imperiled by the upcoming Trump presidency. And around the world, there are many places where, contrary to Dan Savage’s popular video series, it is steadily getting worse.

Consider three very different examples: Brazil, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Three continents, three different cultural and religious contexts, different forms of government with different kinds of leaders. And yet, in all three, a steadily worsening situation for LGBTQ people.

1. Brazil

For sexual and gender minorities, Brazil has long experienced the best of times and the worst of times. The country is cosmopolitan, libertine, and legally progressive, with laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI in international human rights parlance).

But Brazil is also the deadliest place in the world to be gay. An astonishing 1,600 people have died in anti-LGBTQ hate attacks over the last four and a half years—nearly one person every day.

[A] primary reason is the export of U.S.-based homophobia. Evangelicals have risen from 5 percent of the Brazilian population in 1970 to nearly 25 percent today, and their leaders—many trained in the United States—have exported the U.S. Christian right’s extreme homophobia to the Brazilian context.

They are also in Brazil’s congress. The “parliamentary coup” that removed liberal president Dilma Rousseff from office was accomplished with back-benchers affiliated with evangelical Christian groups.

Now, with the conservative government led by Michel Temer (and his all-male cabinet), those factions are in power. Investigative journalist Joao Ximenes Braga told The Daily Beast that the Temer government has already shut down human rights programs in the country and that members of his coalition have called for a repeal of laws protecting LGBTQ people.

[W]ith Brazil’s right wing in power, the precarious situation of LGBTQ people in the country is threatened still further.

2. Indonesia

Indonesia is half a world away and threatened by right-wing Islam, rather than right-wing evangelical Christianity—but some of the patterns are eerily familiar.

According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, 2016 has marked a turning point in the country. “Beginning in January 2016,” the report said, “a series of anti-LGBT public comments by government officials grew into a cascade of threats and vitriol against LGBT Indonesians by state commissions, militant Islamists, and mainstream religious organizations. That outpouring of intolerance has resulted in proposals of laws which pose a serious long-term threat to the rights and safety of LGBT Indonesians.”

The severity and swiftness of the persecution . . . . is particularly surprising for Indonesia, which prides itself on its moderate form of Islam. In the past, anti-LGBT acts were largely confined to militant Islamists, even though anti-gay sentiment is widespread.

But this was different. Government officials have called for LGBT organizations to be banned from campuses and for LGBT people to be banned from holding office. One minister called being LGBT “a disease of the chromosome, and it should be treated.” . . . Meanwhile, a group of conservative law professors has filed a court case attempting to force the criminalization of same-sex sexual behavior. A paramilitary training program with 1.8 million participants declared homosexuality to be one of the nation’s enemies.

What’s behind the flareup? Activists say the abrupt shift in government rhetoric is “cower[ing] in the face of militant Islamists.” And indeed, the rightward drift in Indonesian political life—not entirely unlike that in Brazil—appears to be part of the reason for the change in official rhetoric, with the attendant consequences felt in the streets of Jakarta. Ironically, Indonesia’s relatively tolerant indigenous form of Islam is being supplanted by fundamentalist Islam brought in from outside—yet the Islamists claim to be protecting Indonesian culture.

3. Nigeria

Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, with 173 million people. And in 2014, it passed one of Africa’s worst anti-gay laws, the so-called Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act.
On paper, the SSMPA merely prohibits anything that could support same-sex marriage. In reality, however, it’s known as the “Jail the Gays Law” and has been used as a pretext for horrifying violence, state-sanctioned or state-tolerated, against LGBTs.

Nor was the SSMPA a backlash against the United States—or to same-sex marriage, which no one has advocated for in Nigeria. Rather, Christian LGBT activist Davis Mac-Iyalla told The Daily Beast, the real battle is religious in nature. African Anglican Church leaders, “tainted” by the Episcopal Church’s support for LGBT people, took a hard line in order not to seem more lenient than Muslims (Sharia governs 12 Nigerian states and punishes homosexuality by imprisonment, caning, or stoning).

“It is time the international community take a pause on its relationship with Nigeria,” Alimi said, “and demand a detailed evaluation of the Nigeria human rights record as it concerns LGBT people. The picture is more bleak than we imagined.”

While the husband and I are thankful for the good things in life that we enjoy, we also understand the precarious nature of our rights and safety.  Be thankful, but be prepared to fight and resist.  

African Bishops Embrace Ignorance and Threaten Schism

The one place in the world where conservative Christianity is growing is in Africa, since the continent has the conditions most needed for growth: a poorly educated and ignorant population.  But the ignorance isn't confined to the members in the pews.  In Africa, the bishops of the Anglican Communion - and I would argue the same applies to the Catholic Church - are so stupid they fail to realize that homophobia, not homosexuality, is a European import and they ignore modern medical and mental health knowledge on sexual orientation.  And that doesn't even begin to address the issue that the human genome project has shown that Adam and Eve never existed and that "The Fall" never occurred, thus eliminating the need for a messiah.  As they threaten a schism in the Anglican Communion, the question is are they really as ignorant as they seem or is this some sick power play for control over their ignorant followers.  Religion Dispatches looks at the looming show down between knowlege and modernity and ignorance and bigotry.  Here are excerpts:

“The issue of gay marriage is threatening to split apart the Anglican Communion ahead of an important summit in Canterbury in England next week,” according to the Christian Post, “with African and Asian leaders threatening to walk out on Archbishop Justin Welby.

Welby has been hoping to preserve the communion in the face of conservative outcry over the backing given same-sex marriage by liberal bishops, including leaders of the American Episcopal Church.

The Daily Mail’s Jonathan Petre reports:

The row has torn the Church apart for a decade – with conservatives accusing liberals of abandoning the word of God by backing openly gay bishops and marriages for gay couples – and the Archbishop wants to broker a deal to allow both sides to co-exist peacefully.

But insiders said a hardcore of eight to 12 conservative archbishops from Africa and Asia are preparing to quit the meeting on the first morning unless the liberal Americans ‘repent’ or the Archbishop throws them out.

In what would be a massive challenge to Archbishop Welby’s authority, the conservatives, who represent some of the biggest of the 38 individual Churches in the worldwide ‘Communion’, are then likely move to their own headquarters nearby for the rest of the meeting.

While they are unlikely immediately to break their historic ties with the Archbishop of Canterbury – the nominal head of the Communion – they would boycott future official meetings and set up a parallel church, drawing away traditionalists from the Church of England.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that feelings are running so high that the three most powerful leaders, the Archbishops of Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda, were last week on the brink of snubbing the meeting altogether, but were persuaded to attend by colleagues still hoping to force concessions from Welby.

Sources said they have lost patience with the Archbishop’s refusal to discipline the liberals for ignoring official policy urging them to refrain from creating gay bishops or approving gay marriage without widespread agreement.

Personally, my inclination if I were Archbishop Welby would be to let them walk and immediately cut off 100% of funding from the modern elements in the Anglican Communion.  Indeed, I would go further and have all western aid to reactionary religious institutions cut off as well.  The embrace of ignorance and demagoguery needs to carry a very heavy price.

U.S. Allies That Nurture Islamic Extremism

Fear of and the actions of Islamic extremists are dominating the news of late after the terror attacks in Paris last week.  The only think that made the Paris attacks unique is that the occurred in a modern western nation.  Horrors are being committed by Islamic extremists all around the globe.  Worse yet, countries that are putative U.S. allies and which receive billions in U.S. foreign aid are nurturing the extremists.  Why are we indirectly funding our enemies?  A column in the New York Times looks at some of these other atrocities and our "allies" who are allowing extremism to flourish.  Here are excerpts:

As one group of Islamic militants was waging war in Paris, another was slaughtering vast numbers of civilians in Baga in northern Nigeria — as many as 2,000, according to Amnesty International; “only” 150, according to the Nigerian government.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has blown up scores of people in Yemen, and the Pakistan Taliban murdered 150 people at a school. Libyan extremists blew up a Foreign Ministry building last month because an official wished people “Merry Christmas.”

These spasms of terrorism cry out for a conversation among Muslims about faith and tolerance. 

Saudi Arabia could play a leadership role in Islam. In the mid-20th century, King Abdul Aziz al-Saud overcame traditionalists who opposed cars, radio and the telegraph as non-Islamic by having the Koran read aloud on the radio.

Yet since then Saudi elites have retreated, sipping whiskey at private parties while deferring publicly to the traditionalists. Saudi Arabia does not allow Christian churches and sometimes has confiscated Bibles. (I once smuggled in a Bible to see what would happen if I were caught; Saudi customs officials searched the wrong bag.) The kingdom oppresses Shiites, funds extremist Wahhabi madrasas across the Islamic world and last month referred two women to its antiterrorism courts — for driving cars.

To be blunt, Saudi Arabia legitimizes Islamic fundamentalism and intolerance.

Pakistani officials play a similar game. Pakistan was once a tolerant country whose first foreign minister was a member of the Ahmadi sect. Now Ahmadis are persecuted, and a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, is on death row in a preposterous blasphemy case after drinking water said to be for Muslims only.

Republicans have been hounding President Obama for not sending a top official to Paris. They’re right. But let’s engage in more than symbolism and actually support the moderates in the Islamic world who are pushing for change — and, sometimes, being flogged for it. By our “allies.”

The column also mentions Saudi liberal, Raif Badawi, who our supposed Saudi allies sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam.”  The money and support to these nations needs to stop until they cease supporting and legitimizing Islamic extremists.

The Sad State of Gay Rights in Africa

In most countries in Africa, the term "gay rights" describes something that is almost nonexistent.  Gays face persecution in the majority of Africa's countries and Mauritania, Sudan and Nigeria have death penalties for gays.  While corrupt governments claim homosexuality is a western import, the truth is that homophobia is the true western import that was brought in by the British and fanatical Christian missionaries.  Sadly, given Africa's largely uneducated population (a prerequisite for religion to thrive), new waves of Christofascists are finding the continent to be fertile ground for their message of hate as they steadily lose the culture wars in America and the educated west. As has been the case so often in the past, religion works to prop up despotic regimes.  The Advocate looks at the abysmal state of affairs in Africa.  Read the entire piece for all the depressing details.  Here are excerpts:

Homophobia thrives in most countries in Africa, making the continent an oppressive place to live for countless LGBT people. 

Months after Uganda's Constitutional Court overturned its Anti-Homosexuality Act, which prescribed life in prison for many instances of gay sex, nearly identical legislation returned — this time in the Gambia.

In October, Chad took up a sweeping bill that calls for 20-year prison sentences for those percieved to be LGBT. 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to institutionalized hatred for lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender people in Africa.

Apparently, the Chadian government didn't get the memo about the international and financial impact Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act had on that nation during the six months it was in force, before being overturned on a technicality in August by the Constitutional Court in the capital city of Kampala.

After Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni signed the act into law in February, the east African nation became the target of international criticism and saw nearly $200 million in aid donations from Europe and North America vanish. Gone in a matter of weeks were substantial portions of government aid contributions from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and by March, the U.S., which also canceled a scheduled military exercise between U.S. and Ugandan armed forces. By summer's end, the White House announced that it would deny visas to certain Ugandan officials, that it was scuttling plans for an HIV and AIDS research program at a Ugandan university, and that the country would no longer be the location for a planned $3 million health institute in east Africa.

Now, however, with a foreign policy portfolio bulging at the seams and antigay legislation on the African continent looking more like a potential back-burner issue, those same human rights groups aren't taking any chances. Groups such as Amnesty International and Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights First are urging the president and the State Department to use the Uganda experience to similar effect in Chad.

"Following the U.S.-Africa Summit in August, where President Obama met with African heads of State to discuss strengthening economic and democratic ties between the United States and Africa, it is time that the United States make clear that the future of these bilateral relationships will be damaged by the enactment of antigay legislation," says HRF's advocacy counsel for LGBT rights, Shawn Gaylord. "We hope that the State Department will respond deliberately, as it did when Uganda passed its antigay law, with a plan to respond to the passage of these bills."

Three African nations expressly call for capital punishment for those convicted of same-sex sexual contact, often labeled a "crime against nature," "sodomy," or, in a nod to the colonial origins of such harsh antigay laws, "buggery." Those nations are Mauritania, Sudan, and Nigeria. 

A staggering 32 countries in Africa criminalize same-sex sexual contact with jail time: Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

How to Help
There are currently two bills before the U.S. Congress that aim to prioritize the protection of LGBT people worldwide as a key facet of U.S. foreign policy initiatives, explains HRF's Gaylord.

"The International Human Rights Defense Act would establish a Special Envoy on LGBT rights in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the State Department, ensuring global LGBT rights remain a key foreign policy priority," Gaylord tells The Advocate. "The Global Respect Act would ban foreigners who have committed or incited basic human rights violations against LGBT individuals from entering the United States."

Human Rights First recommends three ways for Americans who care about LGBT equality to pressure the government to act against homophobia in Africa:

"American LGBT people and allies can call their congressmen, congresswomen, and senators and ask them to support these two important pieces of legislation," Gaylord says. "There is also a petition online sponsored by the American Jewish World Service that asks President Obama to appoint a Special Envoy on Global LGBT Rights."

Finally, says Gaylord, "local human rights groups and LGBT community groups in Africa are always in need of additional support from the international community. People can reach out to them directly to find out the best ways to become involved."

Faith Based Hate and Fanaticism

I often note that one of religion's main fruits be it Christianity, Islam or something else is hate and discrimination and, all too often, and violence towards others.  With conflicts in the Middle East this year we are witnessing this reality in full swing: Jews against Muslims and even Muslims against Muslim as Sunnis are killing Shiites and vice versa.  Then in Ukraine beneath the surface of Vladimir Putin's funded civil war we see the Catholic west of the country arrayed against the Orthodox east.  In short, rather than discouraging wars, religion seems to foster them.  Yet insanely, her in America this toxic force is given deference and, in the case of Christofascists, special rights a la the U.S. Supreme Court.  A column in the New York Times looks at the fruits of religious based fanaticism.  Here are excerpts:

[T]his year, the ancient struggle of My God versus Your God is at the root of dozens of atrocities, giving pause to the optimists among us (myself included) who believe that while the arc of enlightenment is long, it still bends toward the better.

In the name of God and hate, Sunnis are killing Shiites in Iraq, and vice versa. A jihadist militia, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, boasts of beheading other Muslims while ordering women to essentially live in caves, faces covered, minds closed. The two sides of a single faith have been sorting it out in that blood-caked land, with long periods of peace, since the year 632. Don’t expect it to end soon. A majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are peaceful, but a Pew Survey found that 40 percent of Sunnis do not think Shiites are proper Muslims.

Elsewhere, a handful of failed states are seeing carnage over some variant of the seventh-century dispute. And the rage that moved Hamas to lob rockets on birthday parties in Tel Aviv, and Israelis to kill children playing soccer on the beach in Gaza, has its roots in the spiritual superiority of extremists on both sides. 

The most horrific of the religion-inspired zealots may be Boko Haram in Nigeria. As is well known thanks to a feel-good and largely useless Twitter campaign, 250 girls were kidnapped by these gangsters for the crime of attending school. Boko Haram’s God tells them to sell the girls into slavery.

Of late, God has taken a long break from Ireland, such a small country for such a big fight between worshipers under the same cross. There, the animus is not so much theological as it is historical. If the curious Muslim is wondering why Protestants and Catholics can’t just get along on that lovely island, take a look at the Thirty Years’ War of the 17th century, when about 20 percent of the population of present-day Germany fell to clashes between the two branches of Christianity.

Violent Buddhist mobs (yes, it sounds oxymoronic) are responsible for a spate of recent attacks against Muslims in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, leaving more than 200 dead and close to 150,000 homeless. The clashes prompted the Dalai Lama to make an urgent appeal to end the bloodshed. “Buddha preaches love and compassion,” he said.

The problem is that people of faith often become fanatics of faith. Reason and force are useless against aspiring martyrs.

In the United States, God is on the currency. By brilliant design, though, he is not mentioned in the Constitution. The founders were explicit: This country would never formally align God with one political party, or allow someone to use religion to ignore civil laws. At least that was the intent. In this summer of the violent God, five justices on the Supreme Court seem to feel otherwise.

 All in all, religion - at least as practiced by its most ardent adherents - remains a perverse evil in the world.

Rape-Marriage of Nigerian Girls IS "Biblical Marriage"

We hear incessantly from the Christofascists that "one man and one woman" marriage is "biblical marriage" as designed by God.   Like just about everything that comes from the lips of the Christofascists, it is a lie.  A close review of the Old Testament portion of the Bible in particular, shows that polygamy was the true norm in terms of biblical marriage.  Moreover, most brides were little more than girls who all too often had no voice in the selection of their husband to be.  Indeed, given their involuntary entry into such marriages, they might well be called "rape-marriages."  All these facts, of course are conveniently ignored by the godly folk.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the fate of girls in Nigeria which reflect true "biblical marriage.  Here are excerpts:

Nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls have been ripped from their desks and chairs, notebooks and pencils, smiles and giggles and sent to hell. They’ve been sold, trafficked for sex and reproduction and household labor. Typically described as “forced” marriage, it would be more accurate to call it rape marriage. And, along with polygamy, rape-marriage is a form of biblical marriage despite being regularly overlooked by conservatives proclaiming their desire to return to biblical marriage. It’s evil but it also happens to be scriptural. 

The practice of rape marriage occurs in many cultures and while it is sanctioned by scriptures it actually reflects the antiquated beliefs and practices of many cultures. Boko Haram, the Nigerian terrorist group (mis)uses the language of Islam in declaring forbidden—haram—all forms of western education. Its sole purpose, they claim, is to (re)turn to a state where their cultural and religious values, as they imagine them, are normative, according to their interpretation of Sharia.

In their gross misrepresentation of Islam Boko Haram has turned to a pre-Muslim, pre-Christian practice, that of human trafficking for rape-marriages. These terrorists target girls who are being freed from the shackles of illiteracy and sell them into sexual slavery, quasi-sanctioned by forms of marriage that don’t require the consent of the girl.

The concept of rape marriage is not unique to these villains or their perversion of Islam. The Jewish and Christian scriptures have their own rape texts. . . . . The desire for biblical marriage is more than a reification of heteronormative marriage; it’s also a rejection of women’s sexual and reproductive autonomy. At its core, rape marriage reduces girls to objects for sale and barter to reproduce through torturous conditions, women who are compliant and accepting of their lot in life as household, sexual and reproductive slaves.    

Forced illiteracy is key. Boko Haram is as threatened by the doodle-covered grammar books and primers of schoolgirls as American slaveowners were by letters scratched in the dirt by the women and men they claimed to own

In my commentary on Ruth, I argue that “Religious authorities (bible translators, pastors, seminary professors) have been criminally negligent in exposing the ways in which the biblical narrative sanctions and contributes to the abuse of women in general, and wives in particular.” So we must tell the whole story about the treatment of women and biblical marriage, one which hardly resembles the rosy picture religious conservatives seek to invoke with that phrase.

We must tell the truth that the bible says that fathers can sell their daughters into sexual slavery (Ex 21:7)—given that enslaved women were used to breed slaves and for sexual gratification; there was no slavery for women in the bible that was not sexual slavery. (An argument can be made for the sexual abuse of male slaves as well.)

We must tell the truth that the bible says soldiers can take virgin girls home with them as the spoils of war (Num 31:17).

We must tell the truth that the bible says cut the nails off the woman you take home as your war prize (Deut 21:11)—making the rape easier on the rapist.

We must tell the truth that the bible says that Israelite identity does not protect women from wholesale rape as a tool of war; Judges 21:10-23 details repeated kidnappings of girls for rape marriage within Israel by other Israelites.

We must tell the truth that the bible says Ruth and Orpah were abducted into rape marriages just like the Nigerian schoolgirls.

We must tell the truth that what is biblical is not always godly, holy or even right.  We must teach the bible’s Iron Age theology because it permeates our culture and society and we must reject that theology when it is death-dealing. 

The objectification of women and girls as objects for rape and forced procreation is the manifestation of the rejection of their—our—humanity. It is older than the bible and the other scriptural texts it permeates.
We must reject rape culture in all its forms, looking in all our houses, including houses of worship, sacred spaces and sacred texts.

Telling the truth and the Christofascists are mutually exclusive.  While Christ's Gospel message is positive, much of the Bible is a horror story that justifies all kinds of evils.  It is about time that people realize that the "Good Book" really is not so good in many, many ways.  

Why Africa’s Turning Anti-Gay

Sadly, news out of much of Africa is increasingly depressing as ignorant and corrupt rulers are using gays as a scapegoat for colonialism - even though it is colonialism that brought anti-gay laws to the continent in the first place - and a way to distract a gullible public from the massive misrule by their leaders.  Making the situation even worse are the efforts of American Christofascists to export homophobia to Africa even as they are losing the so-called culture wars in the west and America in particular.  For their brand of religion to thrive, one needs an ignorant populace and they have that in much of Africa. A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the unfortunate situation.  Here are highlights:

[A]fter a story about George Freeman, director of the Sierra Leone LGBT organization Pride Equality, was published in a local newspaper last year—with photos accompanying it—he was dragged from his car and beaten by two men on motorcycles.

Freeman never consented to the story; the newspaper culled its content from an MTV interview. His assailants were never caught.

There are many stories like Freeman’s, of course, and the situation is steadily getting worse, even as LGBTs have made remarkable progress here—or perhaps because of it.  In fact, the rising tide of anti-gay sentiment in sub-Saharan Africa, as elsewhere, is an ironic brew of anti-Westernism and Western influence.  And well-meaning American activists may be making it worse.

Homosexual acts are illegal in 78 countries. Of these, 21 are small island nations, 20 are in the Islamic world, and 33 are in sub-Saharan Africa. In all three categories, almost all anti-gay laws are a vestige of European colonialism, and date back approximately 150 years.

Ironically, anti-gay leaders—politicians, clergy, journalists—in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone have all, within the last month, called gay rights, and homosexuality itself, a “Western” innovation that must be resisted in order to preserve “traditional African values.”

In fact, pre-colonial African traditions varied widely. Over 20 cultural varieties of indigenous African same-sex intimacy have been recorded by anthropologists. There are Bushmen paintings of men having sex with one another. There are countless examples of cross-dressing and cross-gender behavior. There are instances of female warriors marrying other female warriors, such as in the kingdom of Dahomey, in present-day Benin—unsurprisingly, the Europeans called them ‘Amazons.’  There are even cases of male homosexuality being seen as possessing magical properties, such as the transmission of wealth from one person to another.

The irony would be funny if it weren’t tragic: cultures with rich traditions of sexual diversity now asserting that sexual diversity is Western, and that Western anti-gay bias is a traditional cultural value.

“African” ideas about homosexuality are often those spread by American Evangelicals, out to colonize Africa spiritually rather than politically.  Lou Engle, Scott Lively, Human Life International—these are not household names in the United States, and that’s precisely the point. Like has-been basketball players dunking baskets in Europe, the leftovers of the American Evangelical scene have found new life in Africa.

These Westerners bring (relative) wads of cash and influence, and are gladly met by opportunistic African leaders. Each group is using the other: Evangelicals shift policy and are able to raise money back home, and their African collaborators can posture against Western imperialism and get rich.

The notion that developing world countries should leapfrog 40 years of social history, and the corresponding one that Western sanctions should whip them if they don’t, only feeds the flames of anti-Western sentiment and bolsters the political position of anti-Western posturing.

There are alternatives. Donor nations could support those countries who have passed anti-discrimination laws (Botswana and Mozambique, for example), replacing the Western stick with a carrot. . . . Most importantly, European and American funders can support a fight for equality in Africa led by Africans themselves.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of Break Away Anti-Gay Anglican Parish

It appears that the saga of Falls Church Anglican, a former Episcopal Church parish they split from that denomination over the the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson and which tried to steal the parish property from the denomination, seems to be finally over.  And the result is that the Episcopal diocese owns the property, not the anti-gay break away parish which all too typically used "sincerely held religious belief" to cloak animus and bigotry.  Six other Northern Virginia parish likewise saw their parish properties revert back to the diocese.  One of the ironies of the saga was that the break away parishes had tried to utilize an 1860's Virginia statute which had been enacted to allow break away Baptist parishes that supported slavery to steal their respective properties from the national church during the Civil War era.  The Washington Post has coverage.  Here are highlights:

Seven years after 15 conservative Virginia congregations made global news by breaking away from the Episcopal Church — and refusing to give up tens of millions of dollars in property — the Supreme Court on Monday ended the complex legal dispute by declining to take up an appeal by the last remaining plaintiff.

The Falls Church Anglican, a 2,000-member breakaway congregation, had asserted that the nearly 300-year-old sprawling property belonged to the Anglican group because the Episcopal Church “left” its umbrella Anglican tradition by becoming more liberal in interpreting scripture and ordaining gay and lesbian clergy.

For the breakaway Anglicans, that means eventually moving their huge congregation from a large high school gym and several other borrowed locations to a property of their own — once they find one. For the Episcopal congregation that remains, it means trying to grow its 200-person community into one worthy of the large and valuable property it now gets to keep.

The splits, which happened in late 2006 and early 2007, in some cases divided families and longtime friends who disagreed in particular about the Episcopal Church ordaining openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Both sides at times described the conflict as embarrassing — to see churches spending so much money on lawyers instead of on the needy.

The cases drew global attention for a few reasons. One issue was the size and wealth of some of the breakaway congregations. The multiple properties sit on a 30-acre compound and are valued at about $40 million. The conservatives decided to place themselves instead under the leadership of a controversial anti-gay Nigerian Anglican archbishop.

In 2012, the Virginia Supreme Court ordered the breakaways to turn over the properties, including the money, to the diocese. Eventually, only the large Falls Church remained in court, meeting in alternative spaces as the case continiued.

On Monday, both sides said it was unfortunate to spend so many millions on legal bills but seemed to think it was worth it.

Personally, I would be embarrassed to be walking in the tracks of pro-slavery forces and pro-segregationists, but some of the "godly folk" just cannot feel good about themselves unless they are condemning others.  WWJD??

Homophobia, not Homosexuality, Is Alien to Traditional African Culture

It drives me crazy to watch American Christofascists play blacks - both here in America and in Africa - for suckers and, worse yet, to see blacks allow themselves to be played for fools due to a lack of knowledge of true history.  Here in America, white Christofascists are the same group who used the Bible to justify segregation, bans on interracial marriage, racist views of blacks, and now back Republican Party efforts to disenfranchise blacks across the country.  Any black citizen that knows who these folks are ought to run screaming away from them.  Yet, here in Virginia, the racists and theocrats time and time again get black pastors to do their bidding like trained circus dogs.  Now we see the same thing happening in Africa where American Christofascists have been busy exporting hate and homophobia even as they see themselves losing the war against gays in America.  A piece in The Guardian looks at the fact that anti-gay violence and homophobia are NOT traditional to Africa.  It's all an import brought by colonial rule and white missionaries, many of who are Christofascists.  In my view, blacks who listen to American Christofascists would do well to have their foreheads tattooed with "I'm a cretin." Here are some story excerpts:

While the Sochi Olympics have understandably brought much needed attention to the prevalence of homophobia in Russia, the crisis for LGBT communities in African countries has only been given footnote status by comparison. Homosexuality is a crime in 38 of 54 sub-Saharan countries but even as tougher laws are being enacted in Uganda that would, for example, make it a crime not to report gay people to the police, there is a strain of cultural relativism often evident in debates on LGBT rights in Africa. This has allowed the apparent misconception among some people, both in Africa and the west, that homosexuality is an imperial import and that those opposed to the human rights of gay communities are simply reclaiming their pre-colonial cultural values.

Any person with the time to study the history of sexuality in traditional African cultures will discover that this claim is baseless. Indeed, the history of sexuality in traditional African societies has always been characterised by diversity in sexual practices and identities. Homosexual practices and identities are not new to Africa. What is new is the campaign for LGBT rights that has arisen in reaction to the revival of a homophobic legal and religious tradition inherited from European colonialism.

In the past few years, the movement against LGBT rights in Africa has brought together very strange bedfellows, African Muslim and Christian preachers with strong backing from rightwing American Christian organisations.

The dehumanisation of members of the gay community across Africa has been justified by invoking both God and traditional African culture. However, for over a century the same religious groups now claiming to be the custodians of traditional African cultures have been at the centre of programmes to systematically efface Africa's traditional cultures on grounds that, in their view, such cultures are un-Christian and un-Islamic. Thus, the position adopted by many of Africa's political and religious elites on issues relating to LGBT rights owes more to their colonial religious education than it does to their traditional African roots.

The very existence of "sodomy laws" imposed on many African cultures by British colonial rulers in an attempt to stem what they thought of as the sexual immorality of African cultures point to the presence of diversity in sexual practices among Africans prior to their encounter with Europeans.
I venture to suggest that indeed the absence of words for homosexuality in some African languages, if this is true, is in itself proof that gay people were never considered as existing outside of the norm in such traditional African societies. Thus, it is more likely that the language of "othering" now used to discuss and describe gay communities in Africa is a remnant of colonialism.

As I said, if blacks want to be true to their cultural history, it is the American Christofascists who need to be rejected and criminalized, not gays.   I'd further add another reason that American Christofascists have focused on Africa: their poisonous version of Christianity needs ignorant, uneducated populations to flourish.  African doing the bidding of these Christofascist are demonstrating their own ignorance and stupidity.  Harsh statements?  Yes, but all too true.  Fundamentalist Christianity is nothing less than a pestilence that needs to be eradicated.

American Culture Warriors Exporting Homophobia

This blog has frequently noted the hatred and homophobia that is being exported abroad by American Christofascists who are slowly but steadily losing the culture wars in America.  As always, their favorite targets for their exported hate and bigotry is focused largely on backward and ignorant regions, especially in Africa, since ignorance and low levels of education are essential for the embrace of the American Christofascists' version of fundamentalist Christianity.  A piece in Religion Dispatches recaps the efforts of American Christofascists to export homophobia.  Note the blood on the hands of both Catholic and Anglican clerics in Africa.  The real message, of course, is that the "godly Christians" are NOT nice and decent people.  They are horrid people and the "good Christians" who sit on their hands silently are little better than the "good Germans" who were complicit in Hitler's rise to power. Here are selected article excerpts:

A couple articles this past week look at the work of anti-gay religious groups overseas.  The National Journal’s Alex Seitz-Wald gives an overview of American evangelicals’ efforts to encourage passage of anti-gay laws around the world. Among the items mentioned is the work of Scott Lively and others to launch an anti-gay group in Latvia that believes “there is a war between Christians and homosexuals.”

At the Religion News Service, Gay Clark Jennings, an Episcopal priest, examines “Homophobia in Christian Africa.” Jennings notes that many political and diplomatic leaders have criticized passage of anti-gay bills in Uganda and Nigeria, but says, “Many Christian leaders around the world, regrettably, have been largely unwilling to criticize Christian leaders in Africa who cheered the passage of these punitive laws.” She notes with sadness that Anglican leaders in Uganda and Nigeria “enthusiastically support” anti-gay legislation.

Western Christians cannot ignore the homophobia of these church officials or the peril in which they place Ugandan and Nigerian LGBT people. The legacy of colonial-era Christian missionaries and infusions of cash from modern-day American conservatives have helped to create it.

She quotes Zimbabwean biblical scholar Masiiwa Ragies Gunda saying that it is “far-fetched to look beyond the activities of Western missionaries” when considering the role of the Bible in Africa. Jennings says missionaries promoted a particular literalist approach to reading the Bible.

The Toronto Star also considers rising homophobia and anti-gay violence in Africa, suggesting that it reflects, in addition to the work of American evangelicals, a backlash by conservative forces against increasingly open advocacy for LGBT equality.

As we reported last week, Catholic officials in Nigeria, including a Cardinal, have praised the draconian anti-gay law that is generating persecution and violence against gay people in that country.  In India, in contrast, Cardinal Oswald Gracias has opposed the Supreme Court ruling that recriminalized homosexuality.

Catholics and others have also protested remarks by a newly-named cardinal, Fernando Sebastián of Spain. Colegas, an LGBT rights group, has filed a complaint charging that Sebastián’s comments violate Spanish law against acts that provoke discrimination, hate or violence against groups based on their sexual orientation.
In Washington, D.C. this week, Katrina Lantos Swett, Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, mentioned the infamous anti-gay “propaganda” law as one of many repressive, anti-democratic laws that have been adopted in Putin’s Russia. She said that laws on “religious freedom” and “extremism” grant special favor to the Orthodox Church while giving the government wide latitude to discriminate against minority religions. That favored status is evident in the construction of new high-profile Russian Orthodox churches around the world whose construction costs are being paid by the Russian government.

The propaganda law has most recently been used to fine the editor of a newspaper in Khabarovsk in northeastern Russia for printing an interview with a local geography teacher who is gay; the court ruled that the teacher’s assertion that homosexuality is normal violated the law.

 We reported last week on the surge in arrests and trials in Shariah courts in the wake of [Nigerian] President Goodluck Jonathan’s January 7 signing of a draconian anti-gay law there. Last Thursday, Associated Press reported, “Thousands of protesters threw stones into the Shariah court in a north Nigerian city Wednesday, urging the speedy convictions and executions of 11 men arrested for belonging to gay organizations.” This week, Agence French Press reports that two Islamic courts “have been forced to suspend the trials of 10 men accused of homosexuality because of fears of mob violence.”

There is much more in the article.  The overall take away?  Religion is a pervasive evil that deserves no deference and certainly no favored status - or tax exemption - under the civil laws. 

Church of England to Launch Campaign Against Anti-Gay Bullying

In a move that will likely cause the anti-gay elements in the Anglican Communion to go berserk - especially in the corrupt, lunatic churches in Africa - the Church of England is launching a campaign to oppose anti-gay bullying.   I can just imagine the flying spittle and convulsions racking the church hierarchy in Uganda and Nigeria.  Interestingly, one of the justifications for the campaign cited by the Archbishop of Canterbury is the change in societal attitudes towards homosexuality.  In short, society has changed and the Church of England needs to face this reality.  It's obviously, not the type of enlightened views one can expect from the Christofascists and GOP base in America.  Here are some story excerpts from the New York Times:

The archbishop of Canterbury has announced a campaign to stamp out antigay bullying in Church of England schools, acknowledging that attitudes toward sexuality have changed. The archbishop, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the world’s Anglican Communion, stressed that the Church of England was not changing its teaching on gay relationships, but that it would be “absurd and impossible” to ignore shifting cultural attitudes. He told the opening of the General Synod of the Church of England that “the majority of the population rightly detests homophobic behavior.” 

A BBC News commentator described the move as follows:

Justin Welby's speech was partly exhortation, partly stark warning, to a Church floundering in a society undergoing rapid social and cultural change. 

He spelt out the Church's predicament in dealing with sexuality as the clearest example. He cited the debate over gay marriage in the House of Lords and the way his own opposition to the legislation had been "utterly overwhelmed".

The implication was that Anglicans must be ready to take risks and reimagine how the Church's teaching could be applied to a radically different world.

In some ways it was a bleak assessment - Anglicans had lost trust in each other, they sometimes faced "noticeable hostility", and lived in a society where fewer people, particularly young people, thought of themselves as Christian. 

Archbishop Welby was preparing the Church to take the sort of journey it instinctively wants to spread over decades or centuries, in a few years. To ignore the need, he insisted, would be both "impossible and absurd".

The perception take Christians are anti-gay and filled with hypocrisy and hate are leading factors in the younger generations decision to walk away from institutional religion.  Welby seems to recognize this reality and want to move to address it.  It is a stark contrast from the Roman Catholic Church which seem set to continue its anti-gay jihad.

 

Virginia Episcopal Church Regains Property from Gay Haters

I've written about this topic before, but to me it continues to underscore the extreme animus towards gays - and modernity in general - that is pervasive among the self-anointed "godly Christian" set. What am I talking about? The Episcopal parishioners that tried to break away from the Episcopal Church USA - conveniently seizing all of the parish property in the process - and swore allegiance to fiercely anti-gay African Anglican bishops, one of who is suspected by some of having ordered the the massacre of 600 Muslims. It's sick and I would certainly argue "un-Christian" conduct, but that's what now passes for godliness amongst the gay haters. NPR looks at the retaking of church properties now that the break away parishioners have lost their battle to keep the property they sought to misappropriate. Here are some highlights:

Cerar, rector of St. Stephen's Anglican Church, is leaving, along with his congregation. They're handing the keys over to their theological rivals, the St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Earlier this year, a judge ruled that seven conservative Virginia congregations that had split with the Episcopal Church must hand over almost everything they own.

In 2006, most of the St. Stephen's congregants voted to leave the American Episcopal Church after it elevated an openly gay man to be a bishop. They decided to affiliate with the Anglican Church in Nigeria instead, which bars gay clergy, and they renamed the congregation the St. Stephen's Anglican Church.

Virginia is the epicenter of the Episcopal schism. Heathsville is one of seven churches — including two of the largest and most historic in the country — that broke away from the denomination in 2006. Now that they've lost their lawsuit, they all have to find new homes.

Church of the Apostles is one of the seven breakaway churches. At its home in Fairfax, a half-dozen men wrestle with a 360-pound cross, panting as they remove it from its moorings in the sanctuary. Parishioner Wayne Marsh says the cross is going into storage and the church is being shuttered.

Within weeks, the Diocese of Virginia and the national Episcopal Church sued the Anglican churches. Initially, the judge in the case ruled in favor of the breakaway congregations, but after being reversed on appeal he awarded almost everything to the Episcopal Diocese.

Now, he says, his church owes the diocese about $1 million that was in its bank account in 2007. It has to hand over the land it bought to build a new sanctuary in the future and it's also relinquishing the building itself, which he estimates is worth more than $5 million. But unlike the situation in Heathsville, Harper says there is no congregation to take its place.

"I don't know what the diocese will do with the property, but we do not have a shadow congregation," he says. "There's no group from Church of the Apostles that want to come back and gratefully re-enter the building."

That means the building will most likely be sold, with the money going to the diocese. In recent years, breakaway church properties have been sold to Baptists, Presbyterians, Jews; one church in New York was sold to an Islamic awareness center. According to Jefferts Schori, the only people who can't buy the buildings are the Anglicans.

Henry Burt, chief of staff of the Diocese of Virginia, concedes that this internecine war isn't the best example of Christian love. "I don't know that 'unseemly' is a word I would use, but it is regrettable," he says. "It's also regrettably necessary. The diocese has had very little choice, frankly, as we've moved along this path."

Candidly, I cannot find any sympathy in my heart for the break away Anglicans. They defined themselves by their contempt for others and a rejection of modern knowledge about sexual orientation preferring to cling to a few passages authored by ignorant herders from over 2000 years ago. Meanwhile, of course, they (like evangelicals) utterly ignore the Bible admonitions against divorce. In my book, they got what they deserved.

Episcopal Church To Take Back $40 Million in Property from Anti-Gay Factions

It's been a long legal battle, but the Episcopal Church in Northern Virginia is about to retake $40 million in property and buildings that had been seized by break away anti-gay elements that aligned themselves in some instances with anti-gay prelate Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria. Rather tellingly, Akinola is suspected in some circles of having ordered the massacre of over 600 Muslims, including women and children. That the break away factions would affiliate with such a person speaks volumes to me about their utter perversion of the Gospel message. The break away factions had tried to justify their seizure of the property on the basis of a Civil War era law that had been passed by the Virginia General Assembly so that pro-slavery Baptist churches - many of which became part of the Southern Baptist Convention - could steal the property of the anti-slavery national denomination. While Virginia is racing backward in time under the GOP controlled General Assembly, at least this ruse failed. The Washington Post looks at the long over due return of the stolen property. Here are highlights:

[A]fter a prolonged and bitter legal battle with former members who broke away and took with them more than $40 million worth of church property, the Episcopal Church and the members who stayed with the denomination are on the verge of taking back their buildings, which include some the faith’s largest, most prominent churches in the region.

After a judge’s ruling last month in favor of the Episcopal Church, settlement talks are underway for a massive property swap that would bring to an end the most expensive litigation — and perhaps the most watched — in Episcopal Church history. While the breakaway congregations still can appeal, both sides said they are trying to work out the details of the property turnover. “Everyone is moving on the assumption that they need to be prepared to move,” said Scott Ward, attorney for the Falls Church congregants who broke away.

The two sides are so close to a settlement that the Falls Church members who remained with the Episcopal Church and have been meeting in a Presbyterian church basement across the street are planning Easter services back in their old church, a large, historic property.

It is not overstating the case to say that this is one of the most defining moments in all of our 400-year history,” Bishop Shannon Johnston said.

When the conservative congregations voted to leave the Episcopal Church in late 2006 and early 2007, the case drew worldwide attention. The breakaway members said the denomination had grown too liberal in its theology, and they objected to its ordaining gay clergy and celebrating same-sex relationships, among other things. They chose to become part of the booming, conservative Anglican Church of Nigeria, a separate branch of worldwide Anglicanism.

Last month, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows sided with the Episcopal Church in a ruling that cited Virginia real estate law. In his 113-page opinion, Bellows said the deeds and other documents show the properties belong to the Episcopal Church. He ordered the seven breakaway congregations to leave every single dollar and item that existed before the split to the denomination.

The breakaway congregations are now accounting for prayer books, robes and artwork and preparing to leave centrally located, sprawling complexes for the likelihood of a rented high school gym. The future is in limbo for four preschools that operated in the buildings.

Score a win for the good guys. I cannot say that I wish the break away factions well since they put hate and bigotry ahead of loving and serving others as the Gospels direct.

Archbishop Suspected of Ordering Massacre and Ex-Gay" Advocate Support Nigeria's Anti-Gay Bill

It's been a good while since I have mentioned Archbishop Peter Akinola, former Anglican primate of Nigeria and a strong supporter of break away Episcopal parishes in the USA. Akinola is violently anti-gay and is suspected by many to have ordered the massacre of 660 Muslims Yelwa, Nigeria, by the Christian Association of Nigeria (Akinola was president of the organization at the time of the massacre). A lengthy piece in The Atlantic in 2008 looked at the massacre and other atrocities in Nigeria about which Akinola's only comment was "My views on Islam are well known: I have nothing more to say." Here's a highlight from the article on the "Christian" militia's behavior:

During the Christian attack, the two young women took shelter in an elder’s guarded home. On the second day, the Christian militia arrived at the house. They were covered in red and blue paint and were wearing those numbered white name tags. The Christians first killed the guards, then chose among the women. With others, the two young women were marched toward the Christian village. “They were killing children on the road,” Danladi said. Outside the elementary school, her abductor grabbed hold of two Muslim boys she knew, 9 and 10 years old. Along with other men, he took a machete to them until they were in pieces, then wrapped the pieces in a rubber tire and set it on fire.

When Danladi and Ibrahim reached their captors’ village, they were forced to drink alcohol and to eat pork and dog meat. Although she was obviously pregnant, Danladi’s abductor repeatedly raped her during the next four days.

Akinola's views on gays are also well known and as the Lagos Guardian reports, Akinola is strongly behind the currently pending anti-gay legislation in Nigeria. Other supporters of the bill which would impose lengthy prison sentences include Felix Jovi Ehwarieme, Adjunct Professor of Scientific Theology and Biblical History at the United Bible University, Lagos and President of Shepherd Organization, which runs "ex-gay" therapies. Akinola and Ehwarieme embody the religious extremist behind the legislation. It goes without saying that American Christianists have had their hand involved in stirring up anti-gay hysteria in Nigeria as well. Here are some highlights from the Guardian article of the foul forces supporting this legislation:

Since its passage by the Senate, Nigeria has received strong criticisms and warnings from the British, Canadian and the United States of America governments, which have individually threatened to withdraw aids and other forms of assistance to Nigeria, if the law is allowed to exist.

But Akinola, in an exclusive interview with The Guardian, urged President Jonathan not to succumb to such pressure, but rather tow the path of God by assenting to the bill.

Akinola, who described the bill as “a new orientation towards transformation and reformation of Nigeria from its moral decadence into a new platform of sound morality,” said President Jonathan would be going against God’s will for Nigeria if he refused to sign the controversial bill into law.

He stated that Nigeria needs such law to preserve the nation’s sacred moral heritage for national development. The former Primate of Church of Nigeria, who described homosexuality as an aberration, said it was repugnant to the word of God and African beliefs. “Same-sex marriage is against natural order of creation; it is against the laws of our religions, and it is against our African custom and traditions,” he said.

Felix Jovi Ehwarieme, who has worked with a lot of homosexuals to overcome the condition, said homosexuality is a learnt habit devoid of genetic manipulations.

Ehwarieme, a surgeon and author of Homosexuality, explained that the habit often starts from masturbation taken to extremity. He added that although homosexuals use the Bible to argue their case, the Bible has clearly shown that those involved in the act would not inherit God’s Kingdom.

“An average male child has masturbated at one stage of his life or the other. If this behaviour were not controlled, it would lead to lack of interest in the opposite sex. This often happens in the subconscious mind, so that by the time one grows into it, one would not know why one hates the opposite sex. This is because when one masturbates, one may have practiced it with other male children,” he argued. “So, by the time they are qualified to have sexual relations, they just discover that they have something that satisfies them more than natural sex.” “The problem with homosexuals is that they do not know how they become what they are,” he surmised.

Chaplain of Blessed Tansi Catholic Chaplaincy at Anambra State University (ANSU), Rev. Fr. Paul Ifeanyichukwu Obiaga, described homosexuality “ as satanic and sin against nature.”

Yep, as always, the Catholic Church is spreading anti-gay hatred as well. This ignorant, hate- filled rhetoric (which is sweeping much of Africa) is part of what prompted Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to take action earlier this week. People don't come much nastier than Akinola in my opinion and it is far past time that hate and extremism based on supposed religious belief be reined in and ended. A glimpse of what's happening in Nigeria makes a strong case that the world would be a far better place if religion simply vanished from the face of the earth.

Nigeria to Indict Dick Cheney, Interpol to Issue Arrest Warrant

While it would be far better if Dick Cheney - and Chimperator Bush - were facing indictment for war crimes, I'll settle for any threat of arrest if Cheney takes his sorry ass out of the USA. In my view, the man is pure evil and deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail. One can only dream of seeing Cheney in a Nigerian jail which somehow I suspect would not be up to the standards to which he's become accustomed. Related to this story on MSNBC last night, however, is news that the Liar-in-Chief has been involved in strong arming foreign governments and judicial systems to block prosecution of Bush White House operatives for international crimes such as torture. Once again, Obama proves that his entire campaign was a lie and that the American people were played as suckers as rarely before. I for one hope he's challenged for the 2012 nomination and defeated. I am way past done with the man. Business Week meanwhile has details on Emperor Palpatine Cheney's legal problems. Here are some highlights:
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Nigeria will file charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and officials from five foreign companies including Halliburton Co. over a $180 million bribery scandal, a prosecutor at the anti-graft agency said.
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Indictments will be lodged in a Nigerian court “in the next three days,” Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said in an interview today at his office in Abuja, the capital. An arrest warrant for Cheney “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” the world’s biggest international police organization, he said.
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Last week, Nigeria arrested at least 23 officials from companies including Halliburton, Saipem, Technip and a former subsidiary of Panalpina Welttransport Holding AG in connection with alleged illegal payments to Nigerian officials. Those detained were all freed on bail on Nov. 29.
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Authorities in the West African nation are probing Halliburton, Saipem and Technip for the alleged payment of $180 million in bribes to win a $6 billion liquefied natural-gas contract. Panalpina is being investigated for illegal payments it allegedly made to Nigerian customs officials on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
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The plans to file charges against Cheney were reported earlier today in the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper. Femi Babafemi, a spokesman for the commission, confirmed the plans to file charges when contacted by phone today in Abuja. He wouldn’t comment any further.
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KBR and Halliburton agreed to pay $579 million in February 2009 for bribery payments in Nigeria that stretched from 1994 to 2004.

Was Nigerean Archbishop Peter Akinola Involved In Massacre of Muslims?

Based on a tip from Wayne Besen’s blog, I read the new article “God’s Country” in the Atlantic Monthly (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/nigeria) that looks at the religious wars raging in Nigeria. It’s a lengthy article that shows just how toxic religion can be and that its fruits are often death and destruction rather than spiritual salvation. What was of particular interest was the part of the story that looks at the actions of the Christian Association of Nigeria which at the relevant times to the massacre described in the article was headed up by gay-hating Anglican Archbishop, Peter Akinola. This is the same Archbishop Akinola that many conservative Episcopal parishes in the USA see as a spiritual leader and to whom they are flocking to as they renounce the Episcopal Church because of its policies toward gays. If Akinola has any implication whatsoever in these atrocities, not only is he a monster, but it would also seem that these break away Episcopal parishes need to seriously rethink who they are getting in bed with. Here are some story highlights:

A few hundred yards down the road from the church, there’s a cornfield. In it, a row of mounds: more mass graves. White signs tally the dead below in green paint: 110, 50, 65, 100, 55, 25, 60, 20, 40, 105. Two months after the church was razed, Christian men and boys surrounded Yelwa. Many were bare-chested; others wore shirts on which they’d reportedly pinned white name tags identifying them as members of the Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella organization founded in the 1970s to give Christians a collective and unified voice as strong as that of Muslims. Each tag had a number instead of a name: a code, it seemed, for identification. They attacked the town. According to Human Rights Watch, 660 Muslims were massacred over the course of the next two days, including the patients in the Al-Amin clinic. Twelve mosques and 300 houses went up in flames. Young girls were marched to a nearby Christian town and forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. Many were raped, and 50 were killed.

During the Christian attack, the two young women took shelter in an elder’s guarded home. On the second day, the Christian militia arrived at the house. They were covered in red and blue paint and were wearing those numbered white name tags. The Christians first killed the guards, then chose among the women. With others, the two young women were marched toward the Christian village. “They were killing children on the road,” Danladi said. Outside the elementary school, her abductor grabbed hold of two Muslim boys she knew, 9 and 10 years old. Along with other men, he took a machete to them until they were in pieces, then wrapped the pieces in a rubber tire and set it on fire.
At the time of the massacre, Archbishop Peter Akinola was the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, whose membership was implicated in the killings. He has since lost his bid for another term but, as primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, he is still the leader of 18 million Anglicans. He is a colleague of my father, who was the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in America from 1997 to 2006. But the American Episcopals’ election of an openly homosexual bishop in 2003, which Archbishop Akinola denounced as “satanic,” created distance between them.

Archbishop Akinola has repeatedly spoken critically about Islam and liberal Western Protestants, and he was understandably wary of my motives for asking his thoughts. For Akinola, the relationship between liberal Protestants and Islam is straightforward: if Western Christians abandon conservative morals, then the global Church will be weakened in its struggle against Islam. When asked if those wearing name tags that read “Christian Association of Nigeria” had been sent to the Muslim part of Yelwa, the archbishop grinned. “No comment,” he said.