Last week we avoided stories of the continuing unpleasantness in the Anglican Communion. One of the stories well held back on was a March 21 report of an attack on a leader of Changing Attitudes Nigeria:
The violent attack occurred at the funeral ceremony held yesterday for the sister of Davis Mac-Iyalla, attended by six members of the Port Harcourt group on Thursday 20 March 2008.
Attacked was the CAN Port Harcourt leader who is not being named.
“I am in total shock and living in fear while feeling the pains,” the victim said.
“I suffered in the hands of a mob group that attacked me at the Service of Songs for Davis’s late sister. While hymn singing was going on a muscular man walked up to me and asked me for a word outside the compound.
“The next thing I saw was a mob group who were there to attack me.
“They started slapping and punching me, kicked me on the ground and spat on me.
“I have never known fear like I knew when they were brutalizing me. I thought they were going to kill me there and then.
While beating me they were shouting: ‘You notorious homosexual, you think can run away from us for your notorious group to cause more abomination in our land?’
“Those who attacked me were well informed about us so I suspect an insider or one of the leaders of our Anglican church have hands in this attack,” he added.
Father Jake takes up the story and reminds us that Archbishop Akinola has not condemned violence in the name of the church.
In the US, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network has set April 25th as a Day of Silence for Safer Schools:
This year’s National Day of Silence on April 25 will be held in memory of Lawrence King, a 15-year-old California student who was shot and killed at school in February by a 14-year-old classmate because of King’s sexual orientation and gender expression.
The Day of Silence is held by students every year to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) name-calling, bullying and harassment. The senseless tragedy at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, Calif., brings even more meaning to a day that has brought hope to millions of students.
Hundreds of thousands of students are expected to participate by taking some form of a vow of silence for the entire day or part of it.
The effort has been ridiculed, and characterized as having a hidden agenda, by some conservative “Anglican” blogs in the US. Efforts are underway to expose schools that participating to pressure them to withdraw.