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Globalizing the Culture Wars U.S. CONSERVATIVES, AFRICAN CHURCHES, & HOMOPHOBIA A publication of Political Research Associate s by Kapya Kaoma Globalizing the Culture Wars U.S. CONSERVATIVES, AFRICAN CHURCHES, & HOMOPHOBIA A publication of Political Research Associate s by Kapya Kaoma Political Research Associates is a progressive think tank devoted to supporting movements that are building a more just and inclusive democratic society. We expose movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights. PRA seeks to advance progressive thinking and action by providing research- based information, analysis, and referrals. Copyright ©2009 Political Research Associates ISBN #978-0-915987-22-1 Design by Hird Graphic Design Cover Photo : Episcopal priest Martyn Minns (l) embraces the Anglican Primate of Nigeria Peter Akinola who has just officiated at Minns’ investiture in May 2007 as Missionary Bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). CANA is a breakaway group of Episcopalians that rejects gay bishops and same-sex unions. Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images This report was made possible by the generous support of the Arcus Foundation. Political Research Associates 1310 Broadway, Suite 201 Somerville, MA 02144 U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, & Homophobia Foreword he African continent has long born the brunt of tives rewrote a statement by Rev. Jerry Kulah of Tproxy war s— both hot and cold —of northern Liberia to serve as “Africa’s” statement to the 2008 powers. As Kapya Kaoma shows in this stunning new United Methodist General Convention. When they exposé, over the past decade Africa has become a key were through, it said that embracing social justice theater in yet another foreign conflict —the U.S. cul - causes weakens the church and softens the ground ture wars. for “the massive silent invasion of Islam upon global In Globalizing the Culture Wars, Kaoma combines community” —even though encroaching Islam is his own investigative research with existing journal - not a particular preoccupation of conservative istic and scholarly findings to reframe the context of African clerics. Rather, the alteration of Kulah’s state - the human rights struggles of sexual minorities in ment reflects U.S. conservatives’ own preoccupation the United States and Africa. We cannot, he insists, with so-called radical Islam and the war on terror, and understand —never mind win —either struggle with - reflects a decidedly non-African world view. out understanding their interrelation. Kaoma argues In the United States, these proxy campaigns have that the cultivation of African clerics as proxies by the slowe d— and in some cases seemingly blocked — U.S. Right in its domestic culture wars has linked progress towards gender equality in churches. The these struggles in ways both startling and disturbing. United Methodist and Presbyterian churches have In recent years, Anglican bishops and other failed to lift their bans on the ordination of LGBT Protestant leaders on the continent have become clergy. After long years of struggle, the Lutheran and increasingly conspicuous in the struggle over the Episcopal churches lifted their own bans just this ordination of gay clergy, particularly in the United year, with The Episcopal Church doing so under States. It’s clear, to any who bothers to look closely at direct threat of schism in its global Anglican the situation, that these clerics are proxies in a dis - Communion. This aspect of the story is known to tinctly U.S conflict. As Globalizing the Culture Wars LGBT activists and their allies within Protestant reveals, it is U.S. conservatives —including those denominations, but non-Protestant and secular pro - associated with the neoconservative Institute on gressives are generally much less aware of the details Religion and Democracy —who have organized and significance of these struggle s— both in America African Protestant leaders to protest against any and on the African continent. What’s been missing, movement towards LGBT equality in U.S. mainline even for most U.S. activists “in the know,” has been churches. Their relative silence on similar develop - the effect of the Right’s proxy wars on Africa itself. ments in England speaks volumes. U.S. conserva - Kaoma’s report finally brings this larger, truly global, tives also provide money to their African allies, and picture into focus. Rarely has such a bold set of their African allies have offered homes for disgrun - attacks been so poorly understood by their targets. tled mainline American clergy in their churches. The While momentum and time have seemed to most famous, but not only, example is that of Martin favor the movement for LGBT equality in the United Minns, who appears on this report’s cover with States, Globalizing the Culture Wars challenges Nigerian Anglican Primate Peter Akinola, and was American human rights activists to confront the dif - made a Bishop under the authority of the Anglican ficult reality that our African brothers and sisters are Church of Nigeria. being made to suffer for our hard fought freedoms. The audacity of the proxy strategy is astonishing. Indeed, as a result of the U.S. Right’s Africa cam - In one instance discussed by Kaoma, U.S. conserva - paigns, Kaoma warns, sexual minorities on that con - POLITICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES iii Globalizing the Culture Wars tinent have become a kind of collateral damage in our plar of the Christian social witness tradition currently domestic culture wars. under assault by religious conservatives. Just as the United States and other northern soci - Although written primarily for a U.S. audience, eties routinely dump our outlawed or expired chemi - Globalizing the Culture Wars is certain to cause a stir cals, pharmaceuticals, machinery, and cultural in English-speaking Africa, where conservative U.S. detritus on African and other Third World countries, evangelicals have for too long escaped the close we now export a political discourse and public poli - scrutiny of African social justice activists and move - cies our own society has discarded as outdated and ments. As Kaoma highlights, the U.S. Righ t— once dangerous. Pending federal legislation in Uganda isolated in Africa for its role in propping up colonial would impose the death penalty for certain kinds of regime s— has successfully reinvented itself as the homosexual activity and also criminalize human mainstream of U.S. evangelicalism and the ally of rights advocacy by or for sexual minorities. Language Africa against supposed liberal neocolonialism in the in that bill echoes the false and malicious charges of guise of “gay rights.” Today these same colonial a sinister western “gay agenda” made in Uganda by apologists oppose an active role for the state in allevi - U.S anti-gay activist and Holocaust revisionist Scott ating poverty and in providing universal and afford - Lively. Rick Warren, whose influence in Uganda able health care in America. Few African religious extends to a close personal relationship with First and civic leaders appear to be aware of these contra - Lady and member of Parliament, Janet Kataha dictions. Kaoma’s report makes an important contri - Museveni, positions himself as a moderate on gay bution towards changing all that. issues in the U.S. but declared in Africa in 2008 that, “Homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus Tarso Luís Ramos not a human right.” That same year he christened Executive Director Uganda a “Purpose Driven Country.” Africa’s anitgay Political Research Associates campaigns are to a substantioal degree made in the Somerville, Massachusetts U.S.A. November 2009 Human rights activists in the United State s— particularly those of us engaged in the movement for LGBT equalit y— must contend with the implications of Kaoma’s findings. As he insists, it’s not possible to understand the U.S. context independently of the African one, and vice-versa. So too, any effective response to religious homophobia and the persecu - tion of LGBT people will require transnational vision and action. The success of the Right’s campaigns has depended, in part, on parochialism within U.S. social justice movements. Fortunately, the author provides U.S. human rights activists with a list of recom - mended actions that includes a challenge to western activists to reconceptualize our role and become allies who support African leadership in the struggle for gender liberation there. Only an African cleric trained in conservative seminaries, committed to gender equality and broad - er social justice, and familiar with the complex world of the U.S. Christian Right could have produced this study. Kaoma’s access to African clerics of varying political views and his sensitivity to the nuances of various African and American religious and political groups has lent him a unique and illuminating per - spective. The report is both a defense and an exem - iv POLITICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, & Homophobia Acknowledgements lthough I am an African Christian, I did not know much about the ideologies of the AReligious Right until PRA asked me to carry out this research. I am grateful to the PRA staff: Chip Berlet, Thom Cincotta, Abby Scher, Maria Planansky, Cindy Savage-King and the interns who provided support during the research and writing process. I am greatly indebted to Tarso Luís Ramos, Executive and Research Director, and Senior Researcher Pam Chamberlain who dedicated countless hours to this project. I am also grateful to Professor Ian Douglas of Episcopal Divinity School and Frederick Clarkson, an accomplished author who has published widely on the Institute on Religion and Democracy, who provided great insights on the subject. This project would not have been possible without the help of the following individuals who served on the advisory board of this project. In The Episcopal Church, I am especially indebted to Jim Naughton, the Canon for Communications and Advancement in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and the author of Following the Money, Parts 1 and 2.; the Rev.