Gay-bashing bishop slammed
THE CONTROVERSIAL gay-bashing Ghanaian bishop who on Sunday delivered a sermon which caused Idols judge Somizi Mhlongo to storm out of a Soweto church is now in Cape Town.
Bishop Dag Heward-Mills landed in the Mother City as controversy swirled around him after he told a packed congregation of the Grace Bible Church, in Pimville, Soweto, that homosexuality could not be found in nature.
During Heward-Mills’s sermon, he said animals have multiple partners, but one would never see creatures of the same sex partnering up. “Dogs, cats, leopards; mention the animal. Which one has one partner? It is just like homosexuality; you don’t have male and male.
“If you use that reasoning, you will find that homosexuality is not natural. You don’t find two male dogs, two male lions, two male impalas, two male cats, even lizards, two elephants,” said Heward-Mills. “It is unnatural.
“Yes, there is nothing like
‘I hope the gay and lesbian community mobilise to show him he is not welcome here’
that in nature. And in the same way there is nothing like one to one; Nature is one to several…”
He claimed that animals of the same sex don’t have sex with each other, a statement which was greeted with applause in the church. This prompted Mhlongo to walk out. Minutes later he posted an Instagram video in which he slammed churchgoers for applauding Heward-Mills’s sermon.
Gay rights activist Funeka Soldaat said it was news to her that Heward-Mills had made his way to Cape Town.
“It’s really unfair. He caught us off guard because we were not aware of his teaching, we knew about Anderson before he got here,” said Soldaat.
In September the American evangelist Steve Anderson was refused a visa to enter South Africa and he was forced to leave Botswana after his homophobic sermons.
Soldaat said organisations like SA Human Rights Organisation should be speaking out when people like Heward-Mills spewed their “hate”.
“I hope the gay and lesbian community can mobilise to show him that he is not welcome here,” said Soldaat.
Leader Page 8