On Friday June 26 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States of America in a divided opinion ruled that same-sex couples could marry nationwide. What this means in essence is that married same-sex couples will enjoy the same rights and privileges of married heterosexual couples and will be accorded recognition on official documents such as birth and death certificates.
Despite being the 21st nation to achieve this dubious landmark, it would seem, by the fiery reactions this event has elicited that the US holds the exclusive global imprimatur on the exercise of sexual liberties. One institution more than any other is bearing the major brunt of this legal tsunami: the Church. It can’t be otherwise because though many same-sex exponents have been deceptively placing the issue in the human rights arena, it’s evident it is really about morality and theology. Why in the world would you threaten to send a parson to jail that declines to solemnize a same-sex union? When you must violate the right of one to satisfy another, when the injured party is compelled to repudiate his/her faith in order not to fall foul of the law, we must suspect a rogue spirituality masquerading as legality.
My take on the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender controversy isn’t complicated. If these people must be granted full conjugal privileges because their preferred sexual orientations are considered valid alternatives and therefore normal, we must be prepared to, not too far down this slippery line, also extend the same recognition and privileges to practitioners of paedophilia, incest and bestiality. Enough said.
Sodom and Gomorrah has become the standard synecdoche for aberrant, abhorrent lasciviousness and moral depravity; and rightly so. When one man burns in libidinous passion for another, when one woman’s lustful desire can only be assuaged by another, when a little boy cannot point between his ‘parents’ who breastfed him, you have to be truly dead not to be alarmed. The intensity of the outrage expressed by a segment of the Church in response to the current gay rampage while in order seems to suggest that the last straw has just snapped and apocalypse is finally here. It is being made to look like certain sins and misdemeanours are insignificant. This, in my opinion is wrong; and dangerous.
The fact is, if these ‘small’ sins and errors had been dealt with with expeditious alacrity, Sodom might not have happened. If the Church in America had been consistent and focused on her core mandate of reproving sin, maybe the Supreme Court would have ruled differently.
Long before Sodom and Gomorrah, God found sufficient cause to destroy a world he had made. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with wickedness. God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth. Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth.”1

Corruption, wickedness: sound familiar? In Nigeria, certainly. It is corruption when motorists in Africa’s largest oil producer must queue endlessly for fuel while those that purport to lead live large off the masses’ misery. It is sheer wickedness when lawmakers justify their hefty pay cheques by comparing themselves with their counterparts in nations whose citizens live well while they work actively to institutionalize poverty. How else would you describe a scenario where a pastor feels no pangs of conscience living like the famed Croesus while a segment of his burgeoning congregation that contributes to enable his profligacy can only afford a decent meal in their tortured dreams? The thieves who continually empty the common till are not only bedecked with national honours, they remain the ‘chiefs’ who continue to direct state affairs at the highest levels. Little wonder that corruption and wickedness – that diabolical, same-sex duo – have since secured comfortable accommodation here.

If God intended destroying Nigeria, there were sufficient reasons yesterday to provoke him to. The fact that we have a law prohibiting same-sex liaisons wouldn’t sway him.

When that dreaded Day of Judgment finally arrives, it will start fittingly in the Church. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God;2 says the Good, Reliable Book. With Nigeria as one of the most religious enclaves on earth and host to the single largest church congregation, will it be out of place to imagine our hosting the inauguration of Armageddon?
1 Genesis 6:11-13 (HCSB) 2 1Peter 4:17 (ESV 2011)

OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com
oluguorji.

God....have mercy on us...