Archbishop Desmond Tutu told an international LGBT human rights group that it has been impossible to keep quiet "when people were frequently hounded...vilified, molested and even killed as targets of homophobia...for something they did not choose-their sexual orientation."Tutu was in San Francisco to receive the Outspoken award from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. The presentation was made as part of the organization's A Celebration of Courage human rights ceremony on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.
In his 30-minute address Tutu said that in the face of this ongoing persecution LGBT people were "compassionate, caring, self-sacrificing and refusing to be embittered."
Tutu spoke critically of the worldwide Anglican Church, apologizing for the way it has ostracized LGBT people, and for making them feel as if God had made a mistake by creating them to be who they are.
"How sad it is," he said, "That the Church should be so obsessed with this particular issue of human sexuality when God's children are facing massive problems-- poverty, disease, corruption, conflict..."
"We struggled against apartheid in South Africa, supported by people the world over, because black people were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about-our very skins," he wrote. "It is the same with sexual orientation. It is a given. I could not have fought against the discrimination of apartheid and not also fight against the discrimination that homosexuals endure, even in our churches and faith groups."
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