BBC News, 26 July 2013
Obama in Africa gay rights appeal
'Homophobia' in Africa condemned
Gay rights: Africa, the new frontier
South Africa's Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says he will never worship a "homophobic God" and will rather go to hell.
The retired archbishop was speaking at the launch of a UN-backed campaign in South Africa to promote gay rights.
Despite sex-same relationships being legal in South Africa, it had some of the worst cases of homophobic violence, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said.
Archbishop Tutu, 81, is a long-standing campaigner for gay rights.
'Toilet brush attack'
He retired as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996, but has remained the moral conscience of the nation, correspondents say.
Same-sex relationships are illegal in more than a third of countries around the world and punishable by death in five, Ms Pillay said.
In Africa, homosexual acts are still a crime in 38 countries, according to the rights group Amnesty International.
"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," Archbishop Tutu said at the launch of the Free and Equal campaign in Cape Town.
"I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this."
Archbishop Tutu said the campaign against homophobia was similar to the campaign waged against racism in South Africa.
"I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level," he added.
Ms Pillay said gay and lesbian people in South Africa had some of the best legal safeguards since apartheid ended in 1994, but they still faced brutal attacks.
Last month, a lesbian was found dead, having been sexually assaulted with a toilet brush.
"People are literally paying for their love with their lives," she said, AFP news agency reports.
The UN would push for gay rights to be recognised in countries where they are illegal, Ms Pillay said.
"I constantly hear governments tell me, 'but this is our culture, our tradition and we can't change it'... So we have lots of work to do," she added.
Archbishop Tutu won the Nobel peace prize in 1984 for campaigning against white minority rule in South Africa.
Question: Dear Kryon: Regarding homosexuality or transsexuals. WHY are they the way they are and WHY are they not accepted in mainstream society?
Answer: [From the Kryon Office]
There is often a tremendous amount of information on subjects that are not necessarily part of the on-line magazine Q&A database. Kryon has been channelling for fourteen years, with 9 books covering many, many topics. Homosexuality was one of them from the very beginning. Please see our "Books index page" for subjects contained in the Kryon books: [http://www.kryon.com/direct.html]
An excerpt from Kryon Book 6, page 306
Question from the book: Dear Kryon, I am gay, and an enlightened man. I live in an American society that barely tolerates me, and actually has some laws against my way of life. The church I used to belong to cast me out as being evil and anti-God. I don't feel that I am violating some Human ethic. My love is as true as any heterosexual, and I am a light worker. Tell me what I should know.
Answer from the book: Dear one, less than two generations from now, there will be those who find this book and laugh at the quaintness of this very question. Before I answer, let me ask you and those reading this to examine a phenomenon about Human society and "God."
Thirty years ago, interracial marriage was considered to be wrong by the laws of God. Now your society finds it common. The spiritual objections around it were either dropped or "rewritten" by those divinely inspired and authorized to do so. Therefore, your actual interpretations of the instructions from God changed with your society's tolerance level--an interesting thing, indeed, how the interpretations of God seem to change regularly to match a changing culture!
The truth, of course, is that you find yourself in a situation that is known to create a test for you. Right now, in this time, you have agreed to come into your culture with an attribute that may alienate you from friends and religious followers. You have faced fear of rejection and have had to "swim upstream," so to speak, just as an everyday life occurrence. Your contract, therefore, has been set up well, and you are in the middle of it. Additionally, like so many like you, you have a divine interest in yourselves! You feel part of the spiritual family. What a dichotomy indeed, to be judged as evil by those who are the high spiritual leaders--interpreting God for today's culture.
Now I say this: What is your intent? Is it to walk with love for all those around you and become an enlightened Human Being in this New Age? Is it to forgive those who see you as a spiritual blight on society? Can you have the kind of tolerance for them that they seem not to have for you? Can you overlook the fact that they freely quote their scriptures in order to condemn you, yet they don't seem to have the love tolerance that is the cornerstone of their own message?
If the answer is yes, then there is nothing else you must do. Your INTENT is everything, and your life will be honored with peace over those who would cause unrest, and tolerance for the intolerable. Your sexual attributes are simply chemistry and setups within your DNA. They are given by agreement as gifts for you to experience in this life. Look on them in this fashion, and be comfortable with that fact that you are a perfect spiritual creation under God--loved beyond measure--just like all humans. But then you know that, don't you?
Labels: Culture, DNA, Gay - Lesbian, God, Religion, South Africa