Five Anglican priests in Kenya have been suspended ‘for being gay’.
Their actual ‘sins’, however, have nothing to do with homosexuality at all.
Bishop Joseph Kagunda, the diocese of Mount Kenya West, suspended the clerics when it was found in a tribunal that they were ‘guilty of the sin of homosexuality’.
Kenyan newspaper The Star reports the tribunal said the priests involved had been found guilty of taking advantage of children in their custody. This involved having sex with the children and then forcing them to keep it quiet.
The tribunal called this homosexuality when this is very clearly pedophilia.
The tribunal removed the clerics’ license to preach and then told their victims to consult the police if they wanted to see a conviction.
Bishop Kagunda said the Anglican Church of Kenya is ‘totally against any kind of gay practice and marriage, unlike the mother church, the Church of England, which embraces homosexuality’.
The Rev. John Njogu Gachau, accused of ‘luring young boys into sex in his parish house’, also found the claim that he was gay offensive.
‘These accusations are false,’ he told The Nairobian. ‘I don’t get why a man can level such abhorrent claims against a servant of God. I have never had sex with a fellow man. This is just distateful’.
Changing Attitude Kenya, a LGBTI rights group, described Kagunda’s words as ‘not acceptable at all’.
If the five priests do not appeal, they will be excommunicated.
Original Reportage by Gaystarnews