Religious leaders and the gay community are on opposite poles and never shall the two mix, so they thought until a unique retreat brought them together.
“God is love not hate, love is the biggest commandment with a promise, then why hate,” said Reverend Michael Kimindu at the start of the forum, which was held at a spiritual centre in Nairobi last month.
These words, which he often utters when speaking up for same-sex relationships, had in the past put him asunder with other clergy leading to the ex-communication of the retired Anglican Bishop in the Kenya Armed Forces from the church.
But on this day his words convinced his audience to lower their guard a bit and pay attention to him. By the time the three-day retreat was over there was relief and hope among the participants that indeed the world can be a better, friendlier place for everyone despite their sexual orientation. “So I can be gay and religious,” said a 28-year-old gay man from Mombasa.
For years the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) community in Kenya and the world at large has faced discrimination fuelled by religious instigated homophobia.
Until now Kevin Wanjala, 24, has been searching for somewhere to turn to for his spiritual needs. “I am a religious person but the homophobic teaching of the Church discourages me from attending church,” he said. “Why attend service knowing very well the pastor will demonised me because of my sexual orientation,” he said. At his most trying moments he often wonders why God assigned him such a heavy burden – a sexual orientation that causes him to be shunned by society.
Sexuality is how people experience and express themselves as sexual beings while spirituality is the search to know our true selves, to discover the real nature of consciousness. Yet sexuality is still viewed by many religious people as something we have to move away from rather than embrace.
“I get confused when I relate the two. I strongly feel gay but I want to live a righteous life,” said Sly, a female volunteer with Minority Women in Action. Many religious leaders judge same-sex relationships as a deviation from natural and defiance of Godly way of life.
In the past, we have witnessed a lot of religious sponsored homophobia like the case in Mtwapa, where by Muslim leaders incited there faithful to storm the residence of gay men to stop an alleged gay marriage. In another case, Richard Muasya intersex prisoner at Kamiti Maximum Prison filed a case over the violation of his human rights for being jailed in a male prison where he was being sexually molested. In their ruling by Kenyan High Court judges Muasya was awarded Sh500,000 for the inhuman and degrading treatment he experienced at the prison but his request to have a third gender introduced into Kenya’s laws was rejected.
But once more there was no love shown from the religious community. An association of Christian lawyers strongly opposed the recognition of a third gender during the hearing of Muasya’s case.
But it was evident at the retreat that brought together lay Christians from Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa and Eldoret and the LGBTI set out to unravel the mystery that exist between spirituality and sexuality.
At the end of it all the two groups agreed that the dialogue must continue. They created a religious blog http://kenyanspirituality.wordpress.com, and decided to hold an annual retreat. The participants formed groups, based on where they came from, which will meet every Sunday.
It may sound like a small step to many, but it was a giant leap for the two groups. Indeed opposite poles do attract.
