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Row over gay
clergy turns violent 05
Feb 2008-Harare, Zimbabwe -Two churchgoers were assaulted when thugs
aligned to troubled Anglican bishop attempted to prevent his successor
from being installed in Zimbabwe's Anglican cathedral.
Bishop Nolbert Kunonga was dethroned
when he split from Anglicanism over the row involving gay clergy and set
up his own church seizing the Cathedral of St Mary and All Saints and
its contents.
Last week Zimbabwe's highest court
ruled that the church synod was within its rights to remove Kunonga and
that the property belonged to the Anglican Church not the former bishop
and his followers.
The court said that Kunonga could not
block the installation of the new bishop, Sebastian Bakare.
But Kunonga and his followers
barricaded themselves in the cathedral.
When two representatives of Bakare
went to the building and tried to gain access they were badly beaten.
Kunonga is a staunch supporter of
President Robert Mugabe.
Last December Kunonga announced from
the pulpit he splitting from the Anglican synod, claiming that senior
bishops supported homosexuality. In his announcement he echoed President
Mugabe's quotes that gays are "worse than dogs and pigs."
After the synod removed Kunonga as
bishop and elected Bakare Kunonga burst into a service led by the
bishop-designate and jumped on the alter denouncing Bakare and ripped a
Bible from his hand.
Bakare's installation on Sunday went
ahead, but not at the Cathedral. Instead the ceremony was held at a
local football club.
The situation escalated the growing
divisions in the worldwide Anglican Church over gays that began with the
election of Gene Robinson to bishop in the US.
In 2006 President Mugabe told a
cheering throng that same-sex marriage is a threat to mankind and
condemned churches that bless gay unions.
He said his government would jail any
clergy who performed a blessing ceremony for gay couples in Zimbabwe. A
month later he accused British gay rights leader Peter Tatchell of being
behind an alleged coup plot.
The government showed off a cache of
arms on Zimbabwe television that is claimed had been seized at the home
of one of the plotters.
Tatchell denied the allegations
although he has been a constant critic of Mugabe's treatment of gays and
other minorities.
On several occasions he has attempted
citizen’s arrests of President Mugabe.
In 1999, he and other activists from
the gay activist group OutRage! ambushed President Mugabe’s motorcade
and attempted to seize him in a London street. In 2001, he swooped on
the President as he was leaving the Hilton Hotel in Brussels. Tachell
was beaten unconscious by Mugabe’s bodyguards.
In 2004 a British court refused to
issue an arrest warrant for the President Mugabe.
Tatchell presented a 52 page brief
that accused the government of Zimbabwe of brutality, homophobia, and
repression of civil rights. The judge ruled that President Mugabe is
immune from foreign arrest since he is a head of state.
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