By The Nyasa Times

Executive Director of Malawi Network of Religious Leaders living or personally infected by HIV/AIDS (MANERELA) Reverend Father MacDonald Sembereka has said same-sex liaisons should be allowed to flourish freely and be incorporated in the fight of the deadly pandemic.

The Anglican Church priest told a local radio that consenting adults should be allowed to have freedom of their sexual orientation without being discriminated.

Homosexuality is outlawed in Malawi. And any form of discrimination is also not accepted according to the country’s constitution.

“Any discrimination is unacceptable,” said Rev Sembereka. “Any form of discrimination of the human person created in the image of God is unacceptable.”

He said homosexuals should be allowed to exits like heterosexual men and women.

“Gays have a right to exist. They have a right to exist; they are human beings and let them flourish if they can. Let them flourish if they can,” said the cleric who is also a human rights campaigner.

“Certainly, these are not people who practice homosexuality to people who don’t subscribe to it. They only practice homosexuality among consenting adults,” he pointed out.

Rev Sembereka said the current HIV/Aids prevention strategy also addresses issues of men having sex with men (gays).

The tide is turning in Malawi for the laws to be review to allow same-sex relationships. It is also a growing trend all over the world, from Canada to South Africa, Portugal and Argentina

Malawi Vice-President, Joyce Banda has also spoken publicly about homosexuality when she urged religious leaders to embrace ‘emerging issues’ like homosexuality in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Banda told an Inter-Faith AIDS Association (MIAA) conference that there was growing evidence that people engaged in ‘Men Having Sex with Men (MSMs) and Women Having Sex with Women’ were at a high risk of contracting HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS.

http://www.nyasatimes.com/national/let-gays-flourish%e2%80%93-rev-sembereka.html

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