Gay in Nigeria

I received an email this week from the leader of a non-profit Christian organization in Nigeria called Gay and Lesbian United, who just wanted to check in to tell us about some of the things that are happening in that area of the world. Something stirred inside me as I read it. But then, one story about a hate crime committed against lesbian couple was absolutely sickening, so perhaps what I felt was just plain ole nausea.

(Since homosexuality is illegal in Nigeria there is the risk of persecution if real names are used, so any names I mention here are fake.)

Here is an edited excerpt from the email:

We request prayer especially for our poor sister Annie. She and her partner were living in a committed relationship. Both were attacked with acid through their bedroom window. Her partner died as a result of the burns but Annie is lying critically ill in the hospital. We know that God heals. Please pray that God should lead her. She is experiencing great pains and needs the grace of God to survive. She has no one except us, having been forsaken by families, friends, even her church to die because of her sexual orientation.

I might have thought this was an internet hoax if I had not seen a photograph of Annie's acid-burned skin from the shoulders to the bottom of the rib cage. It looked like something from a bad horror movie--all sorts of bright colors that do not belong on skin, and excruciating pain in her face. And to think that she is suffering as she is because she loved another person in what some of her neighbors considered to be "the wrong way," is completely infuriating.

Each time I think we're seeing civil rights progress, another one of these stories pops up. Matthew Shepard, Brandon Teena...

While Gay and Lesbian United works tirelessly to see that freedom of sexual orientation is added to UN Declarations on Human Rights, it's members' homes and businesses are facing attack from private individuals, and even from the police. Some members are even facing torture in police detention as we speak. The leader of Gay and Lesbian United told me that Nigerian legislatures are working on introducing bills that would provide even tougher penalities against homosexual acts, even though the persecution they currently face from the government, the church, and the community is already too much to bear. While Gay and Lesbian United is doing good work, the power surge seems to be coming from the opposite direction.

Even in the face of this struggle, the members of Gay and Lesbian United are exhibiting a great deal of grace. They just want us to pray. The World Council of Churches is meeting right now in Brazil, and many Nigerian clerics are in attendance. "Homosexuality and the church" is on top of their agenda. Gay and Lesbian United just asks that we pray for God's spirit of truth to lead these church leaders to a higher understanding, which should set off a few bells in our own minds, and lead us to pray a similar prayer for our own country.

Gay and Lesbian United remains committed to the vision that soon there will be freedom for all. I hope you'll join me as I pray for their civil rights, and for the freedoms that people in other parts of the world are already experiencing.

To some degree though, I think these Nigerians are already free. The world around them may be hostile and it may misunderstand and abuse them, but that has not stopped them from rising above and living the truth anyway. The have made a commitment to the truth no matter what the cost, probably because they have discovered it to be inherently good and they know the Source of all good things. I can't part with the truth either. And there is no reason to. Despite their circumstances, these Nigerians have set their minds not on the things of this world, but on things above, and the message they send by doing so is one that has a powerful impact even thousands of miles away. This kind of faith is something no one can touch, and it leads to a freedom that can never be revoked.

God speed, Annie.