Brad Pitt and Desmond Tutu Speak Up for Gay
Rights
In an interview for Vanity Fair, actor Brad Pitt gets
into the issue of gay rights and discrimination in relation to
Christianity with South Africa's Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
Brad Pitt: "So certainly discrimination has no place in Christianity.
There's a big argument going on in America right now, on gay rights and
equality."
Desmond
Tutu: "For me, I couldn't ever keep quiet. I came from a situation where
for a very long time people were discriminated against, made to suffer for
something about which they could do nothing--their ethnicity. We were made
to suffer because we were not white. Then, for a very long time in our
church, we didn't ordain women, and we were penalizing a huge section of
humanity for something about which they could do nothing--their gender.
And I'm glad that now the church has changed all that. I'm glad that
apartheid has ended. I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet,
because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were
less than human, because of something they could do nothing to
change--their sexual orientation. For me, I can't imagine the Lord that I
worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecution of a
minority that is already being persecuted. The Jesus who I worship is a
Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and
he got into trouble precisely because of that. Our church, the Anglican
Church, is experiencing a very, very serious crisis. It is all to do with
human sexuality. I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be
spending so much energy, time, resources on this subject at a time when
the world is aching."
Brad Pitt: "I couldn't agree with you more. Thank you for saying that."
Vanity Fair dedicates its entire July issue to Africa with 20 different
covers, all shot by world-renowned lesbian photographer Annie Leibowitz,
featuring celebrities like Bono, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna,
Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and many others.
Desmond
Tutu: "For me, I couldn't ever keep quiet. I came from a situation where
for a very long time people were discriminated against, made to suffer for
something about which they could do nothing--their ethnicity. We were made
to suffer because we were not white. Then, for a very long time in our
church, we didn't ordain women, and we were penalizing a huge section of
humanity for something about which they could do nothing--their gender.
And I'm glad that now the church has changed all that. I'm glad that
apartheid has ended. I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet,
because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were
less than human, because of something they could do nothing to
change--their sexual orientation. For me, I can't imagine the Lord that I
worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecution of a
minority that is already being persecuted. The Jesus who I worship is a
Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and
he got into trouble precisely because of that. Our church, the Anglican
Church, is experiencing a very, very serious crisis. It is all to do with
human sexuality. I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be
spending so much energy, time, resources on this subject at a time when
the world is aching."
The Hunk
