Gay Nigerian Granted UK Asylum

Activist Davis Mac-Iyalla definitely felt gay yesterday. The Nigerian national heard that he has been granted asylum in the United Kingdom.

Mac-Iyalla, who works with Anglican group Changing Attitude Nigeria, released the following statement:

I’m very grateful to the UK government for granting me asylum.

It means I will have an opportunity to continue working for the full inclusion of LGBT people in the Anglican church in Nigeria.

My heart really goes out to my LGBT brothers and sisters still trapped in Nigeria.

They are intimated and threatened by the increasingly hostile and violent environment against them, fuelled by the hostility of Archbishop Akinola and his fellow bishops – who claim that we don’t really exist, and if we do then we are the spawn of the devil.

It is impossible to have a rational debate in such a climate of hatred coming from what is supposed to be a loving church.

Mac-Iyalla fled Nigeria earlier this year and received notes saying he’d be killed upon his return. And he didn’t want that, obviously.