Gay Bishop says Opponents Use Language of Slavery

The openly gay Bishop V Gene Robinsonin the US has accused African critics who describe homosexuals as "worse than beasts" of using the kind of language once employed in the United States to justify slavery.

Bishop Robinson's 2003 consecration in the US Episcopal Church has deeply divided the worldwide Anglican Communion on the issue of homosexuality.

"Coming out of the experience of the United States where we treated people who came from Africa as less than human and used scripture to justify slavery and bondage, it is painful to me. But we did repent," Robinson said in an interview broadcast by BBC radio on 28 August. "I think some people in Africa are using the same thinking, in some sense, about gay and lesbian people."

Bishop Robinson said, however, "I believe Peter Akinola believes he is following his call to God as best he can. I just wish he could believe that I am following my call as best I can."

Some bishops from the Global South have threatened to boycott the 2008 Lambeth Conference, a 10-yearly meeting of the Anglican Communion most senior bishops and archbishops, if it is attended by their liberal counterparts from the United States.

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