The 81-year-old retired Anglican bishop, who gained notoriety speaking out against apartheid in South Africa, says he is speaking out on gay rights not because he wants to but because he must.
“Anywhere where the humanity of people is undermined, anywhere where people are left in the dust, there we will find our cause,” Tutu told Religion News Service. “Sometimes you wish you could keep quiet. It's the kind of thing you heard the prophet Jeremiah complain of where he says, 'You know God, I didn't want to be a prophet and you made me speak words of condemnation against a people I love deeply. Your word is like a fire burning in my breast.'”
“It isn't that it's questionable when you speak up for the right of people with different sexual orientation. People took some part of us and used it to discriminate against us. In our case, it was our ethnicity; it's precisely the same thing for sexual orientation. People are killed because they're gay. I don't think, 'What do I want to do today? I want to speak up on gay rights.' No. It's God catching me by my neck. I wish I could keep quiet about the plight of the Palestinians. I can't! The God who was there and showed that we should become free is the God described in the Scriptures as the same yesterday, today and forever.”
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