Protestors Condemn Gambian President’s Persecution of Gays

UN speech is latest of many homophobic rants  | Gay sex & cross-dressing illegal with a Threat to behead LGBTs

Posted by Melanie Nathan, 14 October 2013.

Screen Shot 2013-10-14 at 7.23.24 AMLGBTI protesters picketed the Gambian High Commission in London last Thursday, October 10,  to condemn the country’s president, Yahya Jammeh, over his repeated homophobic tirades.

The protest was organized by the African LGBTI Out & Proud Diamond Group.

The protestors chanted: “Some Africans are gay. Get over it” and “Yahya. Ha! Ha! Why are you afraid of gays?”  President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia used his UN speech on 27 September to attack and threaten the LGBTI community, claiming homosexuality is one of the three biggest threats to human existence.

 

“Those who promote homosexuality want to put an end to human existence,” he told the gathering of world leaders in New York. “It is becoming an epidemic and we Muslims and Africans will fight to end this behavior.”   “Homosexuality in all its forms and manifestations which, though very evil (and) anti-human, as well as anti-Allah, is being promoted as a human right by some powers,” said Jammeh.   See here: http://reut.rs/16GyUOa

The penalty for both male and female same-sex relations in The Gambia is 14 years jail. Earlier this year, the government outlawed cross-dressing, stipulating a prison term of five years.

The persecution of LGBT people in The Gambia is in violation of the equal rights and non-discrimination clauses of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, which The Gambia has signed and pledged to uphold. It also violates Section 33 of the Gambian constitution, which prohibits all discrimination,” said Peter Tatchell, Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, who joined the protest.

50,000 British tourists visit The Gambia every year. They help sustain the economy.

The autocratic Gambian leader stands accused of widespread human rights abuses.

He has told gays and lesbians to leave the country or he will have them beheaded; saying that LGBT people are “anti-god, anti-human and anti-civilization.”

He warned that LGBT Gambians will be shown “no mercy” and will “regret why you were born.”

“The Gambia is a country of believers… sinful and immoral practices [such] as homosexuality will not be tolerated in this country,” the president said.

He also commanded “all those who harbor such individuals to kick them out of their compounds (houses),” instructing the director of the Gambia Immigration Department to “weed bad elements in society.”

Commenting on President Jammeh’s hate speech at the UN, Edwin Sesange, coordinator of the protest and of the African LGBTI Out & Proud Diamond Group, said:

“Yahya Jammeh is the ‘President of Homophobia’. He is the big danger to Gambian LGBTI people.   “We are protesting to show our disapproval of his remarks and to also show our support for LGBTI people in The Gambia.   “It is deplorable that such vile homophobic language has been used at the UN.   “His remarks are a menace to the human rights of LGBTI Gambians and give a green light to violence by anti-gay vigilantes.   “The UN platform in New York should not be used to deliver messages of hate that put the lives of the innocent LGBTI people in danger.   “It is unfortunate that President Obama, Prime Minister David Cameroon and the UN Secretary General have not condemned this homophobic bigotry,” noted Sesange.

PHOTOS of the protest: http://bit.ly/1foKuXR

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5 Comments on “Protestors Condemn Gambian President’s Persecution of Gays”

  1. Derek Williams October 14, 2013 at 10:25 AM #

    I wonder how many of these of God’s Laws this preacher even believes, let alone actually obeys?

    DEUTERONOMY 13:13-17 A town that allows the practice of more than one religion must be burned to the ground and its citizens slaughtered
    DEUTERONOMY 21:18-21 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother… then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones.
    DEUTERONOMY 22:13-21 woman not a virgin on her wedding night must be executed
    DEUTERONOMY 22:22 If a married person has sex with someone else’s husband or wife, both adulterers be stoned to death
    DEUTERONOMY 22:28-29 Virgin who is raped must marry her rapist.
    DEUTERONOMY 25:11-12 If a man gets into a fight with another man and his wife seeks to rescue her husband by grabbing the enemy’s genitals, her hand shall be cut off and no pity shall be shown her
    MARK 10:1-12 Divorce is strictly forbidden in both Testaments, as is remarriage of anyone who has been divorced
    MARK 12:18-27 If a man dies childless, his widow is ordered to have intercourse with each of his brothers in turn until she bears her deceased husband a male heir
    LEVITICUS 11:6-8 outlaws the playing of football (touching the skin of a dead pig)
    LEVITICUS 11:9-12 eating shellfish or pork strictly forbidden
    LEVITICUS 18:19 A married couple who have sexual intercourse during a woman’s period shall both be executed.
    LEVITICUS 19:19 may not wear polyester cotton shirts (wearing garments of mixed fabrics forbidden)
    LEVITICUS 20:9 anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
    LEVITICUS 25:45 says it’s perfectly fine for a foreigner in your country to sell you their child, and equally OK for you to buy them and treat them as chattel.
    LEVITICUS 26:14-30 “Then if you walk contrary to me …you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.”
    NUMBERS 15:32,35 Anyone who picks up sticks on the Sabbath must be killed
    TIMOTHY 2:12 “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence”
    PROVERBS 19:2 and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth (running and therefore all athletic sports are a sin)
    CORINTHIANS 14:34 Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says.
    COLOSSIANS 3:22 “Slaves, obey your human masters in everything; don’t work only while being watched, in order to please men, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.”

  2. Oke October 20, 2013 at 1:07 PM #

    So you decided to break one more right? But the same bible says should we continue in sin so that grace might abound?. No man was born homosexual , God does not make mistakes, He is perfect. Homosexuality is a choice and as adults we can say no to wrong choices

    • Melanie Nathan October 20, 2013 at 1:42 PM #

      G-d said that he made us all in his image. Therefore he made homosexuality a reflection of the spectrum of sexuality that is in keeping with G-d’s ideal for the universe. That is why some animals even gravitate toward the same sex on a spectrum too. Animals do not have animus – and so I imagine according to your theory G-d is wrong? The Bible is subject to interpretation. Nowhere does G-d condemn a loving relaitonship between people of the same sex. All and any reference to interpretations that could be construed as sexuality are in the context of idol worship war and orgies….. dream on. I am sorry for your insecurity as it relates to G-d. I have more trust and understanding that G-d indeed made no mistakes and made us ALL – each and every one of us- in his image.

    • Derek Williams October 20, 2013 at 4:12 PM #

      You cannot know more about me than I know about myself. I know I was born gay because I was brought up to be heterosexual, and never even knew what homosexuality was, until my same sex attractions appeared out of nowhere at puberty when I was 13 years old, hardly an age where I would willingly choose the social oblivion that being gay would have brought upon me had I dared tell anyone.

      Your sexual orientation isn’t a ‘lifestyle’ you choose, like a fashionable pair of shoes or a house near the beach, it is something you discover at puberty. Likewise, a baby boy doesn’t know until puberty whether he will be a Baritone, a Bass or a Tenor, nor does the Acorn look remotely like the Oak Tree it will become, nor the Tadpole like the Frog, nor the Caterpillar like the Butterfly. Are these metamorphoses innate to the organism and are they simply part of the wonder of Nature? Sure they are, and the rainbow of romantic orientations bequeathed upon us by her is no exception.

      There are over 41,000 different denominations of Christianity alone, to say nothing of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Therefore there is no single person and no single religion that can speak on behalf of all Christians, not even you. You cannot agree amongst yourselves. You speak with a lofty certainty that your religion gives you, but your god is not shared by other Christian religions. The Catholic God condemns Birth Control and Divorce, yet the Anglican God was no problem with family planning, and was founded by divorcee King Henry VIII.

      There is no rational way these two conflicting gods can be one and the same. While they both condemn homosexuality, the Quaker God disagrees with the other two gods and accepts us gay people, the way we were born. I can name 35 Christian religions that welcome LGBT openly as parishioners with full sacraments, ordain as clergy, and perform same sex marriage. Google is your friend. Go look for them, and find peace.

      • Melanie Nathan October 20, 2013 at 4:14 PM #

        welll said

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