Queer Kenyans decry homophobia in churches
Kenya’s LGBTQ community has decried homophobia in the country’s places of worship leaving some of them with the option of embracing a new queer-friendly church in the capital Nairobi.
The queer people, while sharing homophobic experiences they encountered in Kenyan churches, stated that clerics and other believers have weaponized religious faith as a tool of violence against them.
This hate and discrimination, according to the LGBTQ community, has driven most of them into religious trauma and they are seeking spiritual refuge in the Cosmopolitan Affirming Church (CAC), which is open to queer individuals. “As a pastor, I have worked in a [religious] space that as someone who I identify myself as a queer priest, I have been excluded from that very space out of lies that lack the truth to justify my exclusion,” said Godfrey Adera, an associate pastor at CAC.
Adera spoke during the International Day commemorating victims of violence based on faith and belief marked last Thursday where more than 1,700 queer Kenyans engaged in an X forum.
