proposed nigerian law worries american traditionalists

Source: Living church magazine

March 16, 2006: Two of Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola’s more visible allies in the Episcopal Church have expressed doubts about the wisdom of making gay marriage a criminal act, as a proposed law in Nigeria would do.

“I do not believe that criminalization is an appropriate response to those who understand themselves to be homosexuals,” the Rev. Canon Martyn Minns wrote in a March 3 letter to members of Truro Church, Fairfax, Va. All societies are struggling to find ways to support heterosexual marriage, according to Canon Minns who pointed out that the Commonwealth of Virginia retains laws against homosexuality and adultery, and “the situation in Nigeria is even more complex.”

Canon Minns and other conservatives have questioned Washington Bishop John Chane’s assertion, published in a Washington Post guest column Feb. 26, that Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola “threw his prestige and resources behind” the proposed law.

The Anglican Church of Nigeria’s standing committee, meeting Feb. 22-25, commended government leaders for their prompt reaction to outlaw same-sex relationships in Nigeria and called for the bill to be passed since the idea expressed in the bill is the moral position of Nigerians regarding human sexuality.

Canon Minns defended Archbishop Akinola, with whom he works frequently, writing that “he is presently working overtime to lower the religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria and to care for those who have been traumatized in the recent strife. He is not seeking to victimize or diminish anyone.”

Peter Frank, director of communications for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, said the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan shares Canon Minns’ concerns and agrees that criminalization of homosexuality is not the type of pastoral manner commended in the resolution on human sexuality approved by the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Bishops. But like Canon Minns, Bishop Duncan emphasized the context of Nigerian culture in a statement released March 15.

"It should be noted that while the proposed law sounds harsh to American ears, the penalty for homosexual activities in those parts of Africa under Islamic Sharia law is death," Bishop Duncan wrote. "It is precisely the imposition of these harsher Sharia laws that Archbishop Akinola and other Anglican leaders in Africa have resisted so strongly for many years with little publicity or support from the West."

Bishop Duncan said it was "jarring" to see church leaders "who claim to champion the primacy of local understanding and culture demanding that foreign sister churches give up their local understanding and culture and be judged by an American understanding of individual rights.

"There is a word for the one-way imposition of values--colonialism," Bishop Duncan concluded.