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Tag: gay marriage

  • Taiwan becomes first Asian nation to approve gay marriage

    Taiwan lawmakers on Friday approved a same-sex marriage bill, making the island democracy the first Asian nation to legalise gay marriage.

    This was in spite of global criticism against the practice which many condemned citing both natural and divine laws.

    The bill will allow same-sex couples to officially register their marriage from May 24 and comes after a 2017 Constitutional Court ruling that gave the government two years to enact laws protecting the equal rights to marriage of gay couples.

    Tens of thousands of gay rights supporters, who turned out in spite of heavy rain, cheered outside the parliament building in central Taipei after lawmakers voted in favour of the bill.

    “The first in Asia! Taiwan’s human rights!” prominent gay rights activist Chi Chia-wei shouted from a stage as supporters waved rainbow flags.

    The Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights welcomed the move, saying it opened a whole new page in history.

    “We’ve seen a new phenomenon of gay rights receiving cross-party support,” it said.

    “I and my partner will go and register our marriage on May 24 when the household registration office opens. Just can’t wait any longer,” Chien Chih-chieh, the alliance’s secretary general, said.

    The Taiwan vote comes as gay rights activists around the world mark the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.

    The new special law covers issues ranging from inheritance rights, medical rights, adoption of children to monogamy.

    It also stipulates penalties for adultery and bigamy.

    After the legislation was passed, some lawmakers in favour of the new law called for more social inclusion.

    “You will find that the sun still rises in the east and what you worried about same-sex marriage doesn’t exist at all,” Legislator for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Yu Mei-nu said.

    New Power Party legislator Freddy Lim said that he found that some lawmakers had made comments containing false information about LGBT people.

    “We will still need to improve social communication in order to eliminate discrimination against gay people,” Lim said.

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    Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said this was a day Taiwan should be proud of.

    “The world will see Taiwan as a progressive country because legal protection of love is equally given to everybody,” she said on her Facebook page.

    Anti-marriage equality groups expressed their dismay, saying lawmakers ignored a 2018 referendum result showing the people’s will that marriage should be defined as a union between one man and one woman.

    “A death knell for our traditional human relationships is ringing,” Coalition for the Happiness of Our Next Generation convener, Yu Hsin-yi told a news conference.

    In spite of criticisms globally, Taiwa legislature still went ahead to pass the bill.

    There was a backlash against gay marriage movement in morally-conscious Nigeria when some legislators attempted to push the bill to legalise the act in the National Assembly.

  • Catholic cleric preaches against gay marriage, favoritism

    A Catholic Archbishop of Ibadan Archdiocese Most Rev. Gabriel Abegunrin has urged the citizenry to avoid same sex marriage and nepotism.

    He said it was against God’s commands for a man to marry another man and for a woman to marry the same sex.

    Archbishop Abegunrin urged religious leaders to always keep their vows and avoid favoritism to show the world the need to embrace better values and principles of uprightness.

    The clergyman spoke during the national celebration of this year’s Consecrated Life, held at St. Peter and Paul Major Seminary, Bodija, Ibadan.

    He decried declining of better values and principles, especially among religious leaders.

    Archbishop Abegunrin added that the celebration found great relevance in the theme: “Wake Up the World”, as declared by Pope Francis.

    He said: “In as much as it is our mission to wake up the world, I remind you all that none of us can give what we do not have. It has to start from us, to see if we stand right for the mission of soul-winning.

    “Gay marriage is against the wish of our heavenly father. We cannot see in the Bible, where God says we should engage in such immorality. Rather, the Bible condemns it.

    “So, I want to advise the people practising it to desist from it. We need to reconsider our vows. That is the entry-point and the defining moment of what we sought to be as followers of Christ.

    “How well do I keep my vows? I challenge you all to consider the practice of the vows of poverty and obedience. How do we practice these? Are we on track or we have derailed? Is the world your standard?

    “Once we start looking away from the Lord, we can be sure to start sinking and deviating.”

     

  • Still on gay marriage

    SIR: Gay apologists, activists and practitioners all over the world recently rolled out drums in joyful celebration of the Supreme Court decision legalising gay practices all over America. President Barack Obama praised the ruling as “a victory for America.” The mammoth crowd of old, young and even innocent children who thronged the court and those who marched the streets and cities of Europe and America in solidarity with this aberration showed the abysmal level of degeneration and rot prevalent in the world.

    Did the world see the devastation coming when Ireland which was the first country to have recognised same-sex marriage in May, dared God and the law of nature? Some sane, morally and culturally conscious nations did and swiftly enacted anti-gay legislations to quarantine their people from this evil infection. Nigeria was proudly one nation which passed anti-gay law and stood against this “sodomic” evil practice that challenges the very foundation of our creation and the nature of human existence. This ant-gay law in Nigeria is irreversible! Africa and other nations of the world must work against this evil and jointly resist this alien, repugnant culture America and the West intends to impose on the rest of all of us.

    If you care to know, gay phenomenon will translate into a potent-subtle-coercive tool and strategic component of diplomatic relationship between America and the rest of the world. It has taken the dimension of a compulsory economic product which must be acquired by developing nations in return for aids or grants.

    The western media must be held responsible for being a tool available in the hands of individuals conscripted to gradually ruin the world through its programmes and programming. It deliberately and willingly gave a voice and handed over the platform upon which the agitators and practitioners of this evil tradition ventilate their views. Did you notice that practitioners and agitators of this unholy and unwholesome act of gay and lesbianism are some of the most powerful and trending personalities in politics, religion, businesses, movies, music and sports which have continues to grab world news headlines?

    In spite of all these, moral courage to resist evil has not taken flight from the nation of America as many thought. While Obama praised the ruling as a victory for America, so many individuals and religious groups including Chief Justice John Roberts who was among the five panel of justices voiced out their dissent. Justice Roberts among other things argued that the court was making “a decision better left to elected state legislatures,” in apparent disagreement with other learned colleagues of his. In his words, “If you are among the many Americans – of whatever sexual orientation, who favour expanding same-sex marriage by all means, celebrate today’s decision … but do not celebrate the constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”

     

    • Sunday Onyemaechi Eze,

    Kaduna

     

     

  • Kenyans welcomed Obama, rejected gayism

    Kenyans welcomed Obama, rejected gayism


    The people of Kenya last weekend welcomed President Barack Obama of the United States of America, who was visiting his fatherland first time since becoming American president, but he was not entirely welcomed.

    Kenyans in Nairobi, the capital and largest city in Kenya, on Sunday gave a muted and measured response to Obama’s firm support for gay rights during his visit.

    According to AFP in YahooNews, Obama answered a journalist’s question on gay rights by drawing equivalence between homophobia and racism while standing alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta outside State House on Saturday.

    “As an African-American in the United States I am painfully aware of what happens when people are treated differently under the law,” Obama said.

    The comparison is particularly stinging in Kenya, which, like other African countries, has a proud history of resisting and overcoming colonial rule by white foreigners.

    Edna Kendi, a 29-year old software developer was unimpressed by Obama publicly advocating gay rights. “He has to respect our culture,” she said. “People can be gay but they should do so in private and quietly.”

    Kendi urged Obama to “stick to issues that are pertinent to the visit,” for her, corruption and trade.

    Moses Abok, a 49-year old motorbike taxi driver waiting for customers beneath a shady jacaranda tree, echoed Kenyatta’s view.

    “To me, it doesn’t matter. The spirit of gayism is inside just a few people,” he said using a common Kenyan term for homosexuality. “It’s not a big deal for us.”

    But Abok also welcomed Obama’s words. “What he said is we should value all people, we shouldn’t alienate or eliminate those people, because they are part of us, they are human beings,” he said.

    Ruo Maina, a 50-year old businessman in the manufacturing industry who had popped out to buy the Sunday papers, said what you do at home is nobody’s business.

    “As long as you do it in private, we don’t care,” he said. Maina was not interested in public debates on gay rights, but added that Kenya’s vocal anti-gay extremists are equally indulging in unnecessary “provocation”.

    “We don’t need to be saying it is deviant,” he said.

    Deputy President William Ruto periodically addresses evangelical Christian churches to warn against homosexuality. There is “no room” for gays in Kenya he told worshippers in May, and in July railed against the US for allowing “gay relations and other dirty things.”

    Anti-gay firebrand Irungu Kangata leads a cross-party caucus seeking to have the country’s existing anti-homosexuality laws – which include a maximum 14-year sentence – to be strictly applied and makes frequent media appearances to explain that “gayism” is a lifestyle choice that can and should be unmade.

    Vincent Kadala, an aspiring politician whose Republican Liberty Party has no seats in parliament, threatened to rally 5,000 naked men and women in order to show Obama “the difference between a man and woman”.

    The promised protest attracted a lot of media attention but was never held.

  • Gay marriage is Satan’s agenda, says Bishop

    The verdict of the Supreme Court of the United States of America on same-sex marriage came under attack from the Bishop of Minna Anglican Diocese, the Rt. Revd. Daniel Yisa yesterday. He said the decision was Satan’s agenda for the end time.
    He spoke in Minna, Niger State after the 100 centenary thanksgiving service of the St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral Church, Minna.
    The clergy said: “Gay is not a Biblical or an African practice and if God hates it, we all must hate it.”
    Yisa admonished Nigerians not to be carried away by the perverse culture but should strive to hold on to the truth.
    He said: “We must know the basic truth of the Bible. As far as we are concerned as Nigerians, same sex-marriage is not our portion. Whoever wants to do that in his country can do that in his free volition but should not necessarily say that the Bible says so.
    “The issue is that, as a nation, we keep calling on God without meeting God’s conditions. There are certain things we are not supposed to do and there are also those we are supposed to do if we have to remain His people.
    “We, as Christians and members of the Anglican family, God has remained faithful to us and we as humans should do our best to maintain that relationship with God. We cannot continue to wallow in sin and immorality and then claim that He is our God.
    “He is a righteous God, if we must serve Him, we must try to keep ourselves righteous as He is so that we can maintain that cordial relationship that He has established from the beginning. We should not claim privileges without responsibilities”.
    The Bishop urged leaders to be firm on moral resolutions, adding that same sex marriage would destroy whoever practises it.
    “We should be faithful to God, our families and our nation if we want God to heal our land,” he added.
    He said the essence of his message, tagged ‘Ebenezer’ was to establish that God “is our helper because He is sustaining us as a nation and has not forsaken us”.

  • Nigeria‘ll never approve gay marriage, says Odedeji

    Nigeria‘ll never approve gay marriage, says Odedeji

    Same-sex marriage will never be legalised in Nigeria, the Bishop of the Diocese of Lagos West, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Rt. Rev. James Odedeji, has assured.

    Reacting to the United States’ Supreme Court pronouncement that declared same-sex marriage legal last week, Odedeji said those expecting the same latitude in Nigeria will be disappointed.

    He said legalisation of gay marriage in America will ruin the nation and further erode its Christian heritage.

    Speaking with reporters on Sunday shortly after the Trinity ordination of the Diocese, Odedeji said: “Gay marriage is barbaric and unscriptural. It is not of God.

    “If gay marriage is approved somewhere else, it cannot be approved here because we know it is not true. Whoever approves gay marriage is a man or woman of darkness.”

    The cleric expressed confidence that government officials will never back gay marriage.

    He stated: “It is a wrong practice and God will not allow it to happen in Nigeria.

    “I believe that the Federal Government will not allow it to happen because it will ruin us as a nation.”

    He took a swipe at Americans for embracing same-sex marriage, declaring that it was worrisome that the world power was drifting from its Christian values.

    “What is happening is that they are too comfortable. What the United States of America is doing now is a path to destruction which will not last.

    “It is unfortunate that we are expecting more from them which we are not getting and I assure you that God will not allow that to happen in Nigeria,” he stressed.

    He faulted the huge wardrobe allowances for federal lawmakers, saying many of them should not draw such money because they are not poor.

    Odedeji called for downward review of the allowances in line with current economic realities.

    “A lot of people in the country do not have food on their table. Parents are unable to send their children to schools and those who are voted by the same masses are being paid outrageous allowances.

    “It is unfortunate and I want to assure you that majority of political office holders are living above average before been elected. They can afford living large without being paid these huge allowances,” Odedeji stated.

    On the free-for-all at the House of Representatives last week, the cleric declared it as unacceptable, lamenting that the lawmakers were simply fighting for their pockets.

    He said: “Fighting and creating unpalatable scenario among the members of House of Representatives have become their usual practice.

    “It is about their personal interest and majority of them are there for their selfish interests and bellies.

    “This attitude is inappropriate. It is unfortunate that if they have not thrown chairs and tables at their sittings they have not started. These are men and women who are supposed to be of worthy character and their conduct is very shameful.”

     

  • Nigeria‘ll never approve gay marriage, says cleric

    Same-sex marriage will never be legalised in Nigeria, the Bishop of the Diocese of Lagos West, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Rt. Rev. James Odedeji, has assured.

    Reacting to America’s Supreme Court pronouncement that declared same-sex marriage legal last week, Odedeji said those expecting the same latitude in Nigeria would be disappointed.

    He said legalisation of gay marriage in America would ruin the nation and further erode its Christian heritage.

    Speaking with reporters on Sunday shortly after the Trinity ordination of the Diocese, Odedeji said: “Gay marriage is barbaric, unchristian and not scriptural. It is not of God.

    “If gay marriage is approved somewhere else, it cannot be approved here because we know it is not true. Whoever approves gay marriage is a man or woman of darkness.”

    The cleric expressed confidence that government officials will never back gay marriage.

    He stated: “It is a wrong practice and God will not allow it to happen in Nigeria.

    “I believe that the government of Nigeria will not allow it to happen because it will ruin us as a nation.”

    He took a swipe at Americans for embracing same-sex marriage, declaring that it was worrisome that the world power was drifting from its Christian values.

    “What is happening is that they are too comfortable. What the United States of America is doing now is a path to destruction which will not last.

    “It is unfortunate that we are expecting more from them which we are not getting and I assure you that God will not allow that to happen in Nigeria,” he stressed.

    He faulted the huge wardrobe allowances for federal lawmakers, saying many of them should not draw such money because they are not poor.

    Odedeji called for a downward review of the allowances in line with the economic realities.

    “A lot of people in the country do not have food on their table. Parents are unable to send their children to schools and those who are voted by the same masses are being paid outrageous allowances.

    “It is unfortunate and I want to assure you that majority of political office holders are living above average before being elected. They can afford living large without being paid these huge allowances,” Odedeji stated.

    On the free-for-all at the House of Representatives last week, the cleric declared it as unacceptable, lamenting that the lawmakers were simply fighting over their pockets.

    He said: “Fighting and creating unpalatable scenario among members of House of Representatives has become their usual practice.

    “It is about their personal interest, about naira and kobo and majority of them are there for their selfish interests and stomachs.

    “This attitude is inappropriate. It is unfortunate that if they have not thrown chairs and tables in their sittings they have not started. These are men and women that are supposed to be of worthy character and their conduct is very shameful.”

     

  • 12 arrested for planning gay marriage in Kano

    Sharia police arrested 12 men accusing them of attempting gay marriage in Kano, though 10 were later released, a spokesman for the board overseeing Islamic rules in the area said on Tuesday.

    Gay marriage, same-sex relationships and membership of gay rights groups were banned in January 2014 by President Goodluck Jonathan despite Western pressures over gay rights and threats of aid cuts to those passing laws that persecute homosexuals, Reuters reports.

    Nigeria’s population is roughly split between predominantly Christians in the south and Muslims in the north. As in much of sub-Saharan Africa, anti-gay sentiment extends across the religious divide.

    A spokesman for the sharia law group, Mohammed Yusuf Yola, said the men were arrested at the scene of the ceremony on the outskirts of Kano on Sunday following a tip-off.

    “It is still an allegation but when we screened them, they really looked gay, and the way they behaved was gay,” Yola said.

    10 out of the 12 suspects were released after their parents signed a statement that they would keep their children away from such activities, Yola said, but would be handed over to the police for prosecution if they were caught again.

    Nigeria’s anti-gay laws provide for sentences of up to 14 years in prison.

  • Gay marriage: We’ll continue pressing to change law – US

    United States has said that its condemnation of gay marriage law in Nigeria and other African countries does not amount to interference.

    The action, according to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa is to ensure that people under whatever guise were not denied their human rights.

    Thomas-Greenfield, who spoke on Tuesday during the live-web chat monitored in Abuja, said US will continue to impress it on the government and the legislators on the need to give everyone equal opportunity.

    She noted that US is just against legislations that is targeted against gay people.

    The Assistant Secretary of State also insisted that American government supports human rights for all the people.

    She said, ” As a policy we will continue to press the government of Nigeria and other governments and the legislature to change this law and provide human rights to all Nigerians regardless of their sexual orientation.’’

     

  • A different view on gay marriage

    SIR: President Jonathan’s recent signing of the law making gay marriage illegal in Nigeria and the general glee that greeted this unconscionable legislation are as sad as they are an expression of a nation’s lack of defining character and values. Apart from an unfounded fear that gay practice will signal a decline in procreation, the defenders of the legislation against gay marriage have touted arguments on a practice that they feel is immoral, bestial and unnatural. They go even further to label gay practice a Western culture that must never be permitted in Nigeria. On this subject, old political and religious enemies have united and the inefficient government of Goodluck Jonathan has succeeded in throwing an uncouth red herring to divert attention away from its corrupt and incompetent handling of the country’s resources. This is a country which has remained silent over the legislation of child marriage, yet it finds it ethically unjustifiable to have homosexual people realise their own sexual fulfilment.

    What is wrong with gay marriage? We must recognise first that all marriages are basically products of social constructs and a contractual agreement between consenting people who want to live together towards certain ends. And marriage is not destined for procreation. Otherwise, human sexual organs should have remained deactivated until a priest decides to activate them by joining qualified persons in marriage. That way, we would all understand that marriage was primarily destined for the production of children. But we recognise that not all married people (homosexual or heterosexual) wish to produce children. That choice does not make their contractual union any less of a marriage from those who produce children.

    Importantly, to encourage some forms of marriage and outlaw other forms will not make people who prefer the outlawed forms to follow the legalised forms. Rather, it defeats even the very purpose of the marriage institution, which is to create a socially recognisable means of relating and regulating human contractual relationships. Outlawing gay marriage is a way of endorsing its covert practice. I am yet to hear how gay marriage harms Nigeria or how it harms what Nigeria represents. If we find the need to condemn autocracy in favour of democracy, then democracy has to be made to count by tolerating, not coercing people who want to do things differently for themselves. Societies with character and vision make laws that liberate, not laws that polarise, restrict and exclude some of its component groups.

    To further show how counter-effective this law is, it is common knowledge that homosexual practice is pervasive in prison yards. Assuming many people fall victim to this unjust law and get sent to prison to spend 14 years there, they will ultimately come out perhaps better gay people than they have been before they are thrown into the prisons. How corrective is this law then when it will in the long run imbue gay people with stronger homosexual experience?

    Obviously, this law is an expression of national folly. But I am not really surprised. A country whose president was as witless as to tell the American president that the problem of the world is Nigeria and that to fix the world will be to fix Nigeria. What do you expect, if not legislations that will perpetually send its populations to live elsewhere because the government lacks the competence to govern? And to imagine that this same government has been grandstanding that America should not impose its principles on Nigeria, even when Nigeria’s president wants America to fix Nigeria.

    What this laughable legislation will end up doing is to open new doors to many Nigerian émigrés to flee the country. Now, more Nigerians will have to declare themselves gay and run to the American embassy to seek asylum. So, the legislation is not entirely out of place. Since the US has decided to exclude Nigeria in its annual immigration visa programme, Nigeria has decided to open another door for its citizens to flee to the West. President Jonathan may be right after all: Nigeria needs serious fixing and fixing by the West.

    • Arthur Anyaduba,

    University of Manitoba, Canada.