Sep 05, 2007News: Anglican Bishop Attacks Gay People
By Sven Rabatzky
(Nigeria) - The Anglican Bishop of Uyo, Nigeria, Isaac Orama, has publicly assaulted the "activities of homosexuals and Lesbians", and described those engaged in them as "insane people''. In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) given on 2 September 2007 he said: "Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God's purpose for man." The statement revealed the criminal nature of the policy of Churh of Nigeria to dehumanize and demonize Gay people and instigate hatred and violence against them.
Davis Mac-Iyalla, Director of Changing Attitude Nigeria, said today:
“As the time draws close for the Nigerian bishops to vote whether or not they will attend the Lambeth Conference, Archbishop Peter Akinola is at work lobbying the bishops of Nigeria to support his personal ideas about the future of the Anglican Communion. Even if bishop Orama needs to reward Akinola and the other bishops who lobbied for him to become a bishop himself, he doesn’t need to step on the head of innocent Gay and Lesbian people.
“Changing Attitude Nigeria is surprised that a bishop like Orama uses such language about homosexuality and calls people created in the likeness and image of God satanic. Bishop Orama is from the Niger Delta and knows very well that homosexuality existed in Nigeria even before the advent of western missionaries.
“Changing Attitude Nigeria challenges his authority to use those words about us. We ask, as LGBT Anglicans in Nigeria, whether this is his contribution to the Listening Process to which the Communion is committed in the Windsor Report.
“Bishop Orama has once more focussed the attention of church and society against an innocent and vulnerable minority of people in a hostile country like Nigeria.
“Changing Attitude Nigeria calls on the facilitator for the listening process, Canon Phil Groves, to take note of Bishop Orama’s comments. The Church of Nigeria has been denying our existence and is now using every means and tactic to silence us.”
The Bishop noted that the Anglican Church in Nigeria had continued to lead the fight against the practice especially in the US where it led the opposition to same sex marriages. "The aim of such fight is to provide a safe place for those who want to remain faithful Anglicans and Biblical Christians.”
According to Davis Mac-Iyalla, the background information about Bishop Orama is telling. The Rt. Revd. Isaac Orama of Uyo diocese was recently ordained as a bishop. He is one of Archbishop Peter Akinola’s newly appointed bishops, carefully chosen to support the Archbishop‘s own agenda.
The former Archbishop of the Niger Delta Provinces, who was prior to that the Bishop of Uyo Diocese, was bishop Nglass who retired a year or so ago. Bishop Orama was a priest in the Diocese of Niger Delta North. He was selected to become a bishop because his patron is the present Bishop of the Diocese of Niger Delta North, the Rt. Rev. Ignatius Kattey, who is another close friend and strong ally of Archbishop Akinola.
