State Department’s Public Diplomacy Effort Lands with a Thud
By Ebere Inyama and Mike Ode James
(Kaduna) Following the sponsorship of a play portraying God as bisexual, Nigerian Christian clerics and worshippers have expressed their disappointment with the Biden-Harris Administration in the USA.
Eleven months after spending $120,000 to promote LGBTQI rights in Chad, a Sahel nation with deeply conservative traditions, the Biden-Harris administration is paying to put on a play that portrays God as a sex maniac.
The U.S. State Department effort in Africa is part of a global cultural diplomacy effort aimed at promoting common interests of the people of the United States and publics in foreign countries. As State’s Grant-funding website explains it:
“To support the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics and by expanding and strengthening the relationship between the people and government of the United States and citizens of the rest of the world.”
Federal grant records show that the U.S. State Department paid $20,000 in early September, 2024 to sponsor a showing of Tony Kushner’s 1991 play “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” in North Macedonia, in southeastern Europe.
The play featured a gay man having a vision that angels have “eight vaginas” and that the universe was created by God “copulat[ing] ceaselessly” with these hermaphroditic beings.”
Nigerian Christian Clerics React
Christian religious leaders in Nigeria have repeatedly made their position public on LGBTQI controversy (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex), condemning without equivocation, their gradual infiltration into human culture and practice.
Speaking during an interview with TruthNigeria, a Kaduna based Preacher, Pastor Sunday Oladipo (PhD) of Supernatural Dominion Bible Church, Buwaya said that LGBTQ has no place in Nigerian churches.
“Gay, lesbianism, homosexually induced immoralities do not have a place in African society nor in African churches , he began.
“As you can see, most African Christians are rooting for former President Donald Trump. Their action is based on the fact that only Trump can rescue Christians and Christianity in America and Africa,” he continued.
“In fact, the Biden’s push for sexual liberalism would only evoke resentment toward the American Government.
“You see, Nigerians are setting up churches in America and Europe where the gospel of Christ would be preached devoid of LGBTQ,” he said.
Responding to questions on the issue of the Department of State promoting a production that portrays God as bisexual, Oladipo said the play fuels resentment of religious bodies toward the Biden-Harris administration.
“There would be a worldwide backlash against the Biden-Harris administration and the producers of such a play,” he said.
Dr. Sam Albert, General Overseer of Kings Worship Ministry and Centre International in Kaduna, Nigeria, expressed concern over the play co–sponsored by the Department of State in an interview with TruthNigeria,.
“As Christians, we cannot be deterred by such assertions. God is a spirit and does not possess sexual emotions.
“The Democratic Party in America is trying to impose LGBTQI on African countries using financial inducement but as Christians, we know that the Bible does not encourage any form of sexual immorality.
“It is the attempt to foster gay rights on African countries that they are promoting films that portray God as bisexual. This is bound to fail,” he said.
African Culture Defies LGBTQI
Laws and attitudes in Africa are more hostile toward LGBTQI than they are in Europe and America and more than half of the nations in Africa criminalize homosexuality, according to Reuters.
LGBTQ+ persons in Nigeria endure social exclusion, harassment, and violence owing to the fact that LGBTQI is regarded as a taboo in the country.
In a survey conducted by in 2019 by Statista Research Service, only seven percent of respondents in Nigeria indicated that homosexuality should be accepted by the society.
Despite sustained efforts in the past decade by American and European nations to woo African leaders to accept LGBTQI rights, 31 African countries, including Nigeria have criminalized consensual same-sex sexual acts.
In Gambia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, the penalty for engaging in homosexual acts is life imprisonment while in other countries such as Malawi and Kenya, the penalty ranges from 14 to 21 years in jail. In Nigeria, however, people found guilty of engaging in homosexual acts in the northern states may be sentenced to death, or, if convicted by courts in Southern States, 14 years in jail.
Nigeria’s Lawmakers Defied Threat By Former US President Over Gay Rights
Despite threats by then U.S. President Barack Obama to cut off foreign aid to Nigeria in May, 2012 if the country passed an anti-gay bill into law, Nigerian Lawmakers stood their ground.
“Same-sex marriage is alien to our culture and we can never give it a chance. So, if [Western nations] withhold their aid to us, to hell with them,” said a Nigerian lawmaker, Zakari Mohammed, while addressing the Nigerian press in 2012.
Echoing Mohammed’s address, then-Minister for Information, Labaran Maku, said that Nigerians reserve the right to make their own laws without apologies to other countries.
“Some of the things that are considered fundamental rights abroad can be very offensive to African culture and tradition and to the way we live our lives here so if the U.S or any other foreign country wants to strip us of aid because we still hold on tightly to our values, then so be it,” Maku said during a press conference.
Ebere Inyama and Mike Ode James are conflict reporters for TruthNigeria.
