Anti-gay law: Catholics, Methodists back Jonathan

The Catholic Diocese of Abeokuta and the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Remo Central Diocese in Ogun State, on Tuesday, backed President Goodluck Jonathan over the law prohibiting same-sex marriage in the country.
The Catholics and Methodists also said that the President should not yield to pressures from the Western countries and the international community to reverse the already signed law.
The two churches spoke at separate news conferences in Abeokuta and Isara.
While the Diocesan Administrator of the Catholic Diocese of Abeokuta, Most Rev. Monsignor Christopher Ajala, spoke in Abeokuta, the Bishop of the Diocese of Remo Central of the Methodist Church Nigeria, Rt. Revd. Job Ohu, spoke in Isara.
Ajala and Ohu stressed that Jonathan should not allow himself to be intimidated by the current outcry from the Western countries against the enactment of the anti-gay law in Nigeria.
The two clerics commended Jonathan for signing the bill prohibiting same-sex marriage in Nigeria, despite the opposition from the Western world.
Ajala said that same-sex marriage was against God’s injunction and would deny the marriage institution its significance.
He said anyone engaged in such act must be suffering from medical disorder and should be subjected to examination.
The cleric said, “The Catholic Church frowns at that because we will contradict the injunction of God concerning marriage when He established marriage in the garden of Eden.
“I do not know how we can go about it – how a man can give birth to children or how a woman to woman can have a proper intercourse. We sympathize with people in this disorder and we pray for them and we even encourage people with this disorder to get help”.
Ohu, on his part, said that Jonathan had heeded a divine directive by signing the anti-gay bill into law.
He condemned gay practices and same-sex marriage as anti-African and repulsive to our culture as well as in the sight of God.
Ohu said, “What the president did is the directive from heaven. The Methodist Church does not support gay practices. It is a taboo in Africa and in Yorubaland. The church is in support of what the president has done.”