Home Affairs postpones gay hate pastor meeting

A meeting between members of the LGBTI community and Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba about kill-the-gays pastor Steven Anderson has been postponed at the last minute.

The meeting was set to take place today (Monday) in Pretoria and would have included SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) Chairman Lawrence Mushwana and the creators of the petition opposing Anderson’s “soulwinning” trip to South Africa in September.

The petition urges the government to bar Anderson from entering South Africa. While the minister last week claimed he was powerless to stop the preacher, the meeting had offered hope that something could be done. A press conference was also scheduled to be held after the meeting.

This morning, however, the department announced that the meeting had been postponed “due to unforeseen circumstances”.

Hendrik Baird, GaySA Radio Station Manager, who initiated the petition, said he was told that the postponement was due to the minister not feeling well.

“I was discouraged at the cancellation,” he admitted, but still believes that a meeting will take place.

“I am very positive that we will get a result and we will achieve our aim,” said Baird. “It has also given us some breathing space to put together a more comprehensive submission to the SAHRC, which will further strengthen our case,” he added.

Home Affairs spokesperson Thabo Mokgola told Mambaonline that a new date for a meeting “will be communicated soon”.

The claim by Home Affairs that it cannot stop Anderson has been disputed by Coenie Kukkuk, GaySA Radio’s legal counsel in the matter.

He’s pointed out that in terms of Section 29 (1) (d) of the Immigration Act, the minister “has every right and power to prohibit” Anderson and his group from entering South Africa on the grounds of “advocating the practice of racial hatred or social violence”.

In the meantime, Kukkuk has urged members of the LGBTI community to file complaints with the SA Human Rights Commission against Anderson’s visit to strengthen the case against him. A complaint form can be downloaded here.

Anderson, who heads up Tempe’s Faithful Word Baptist Church, has stated that killing gay people would free the world from the AIDS epidemic. “…if you executed the homos like God recommends, you wouldn’t have all this AIDS running rampant,” he said in 2014.

Most recently, Anderson praised the slaughter of 49 (at first thought to be 50) people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. “The good news is that there’s 50 less paedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and paedophiles,” he proclaimed in a YouTube video the day after the massacre.

He has also continued to state his belief that governments must execute gay people.