DA slams Minister Gigaba for “misleading” SA over gay hate pastor

The DA says that Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba is lying about his claimed inability to stop gay hate Pastor Steven Anderson’s visit to South Africa.

Gigaba’s spokesperson recently stated that “the law doesn’t allow us to turn away anyone from entering the country based on what they have said”.

In a statement, the DA slammed Gigaba’s “poor attempt to explain away government inaction” over the visit, describing it not only as “misleading, but inconsistent with the legislation which regulates the matter”.

It pointed out that section 29(1) of the Immigration Act, 2002, states that certain persons can be denied a port of entry visa. Such a person includes: “a member of or adherent to an association or organisation advocating the practise of racial hatred and social violence.”

The DA contends that Pastor Anderson falls within this category because of his repeated call for the execution of gay people and his praise of the horrific attack on the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, which left 49 people dead.

These comments, the party said, are a call for violence and are inconsistent with the values enshrined in the Constitution.

“It is deeply revealing that the ANC government denied the Dalai Lama a visa to South Africa, without any grounds provided; yet are prepared to argue, as Gigaba has done, that their hands are tied with Anderson’s visit,” said the DA.

Gigaba had agreed to meet representatives of the LGBT community on Monday about Anderson’s visit, but cancelled at the last minute, apparently due to ill health. His spokesperson promised to reschedule the meeting but a new date has not been announced.

The DA said it will request an urgent explanation from the minister as to why he has chosen to ignore legislation and allow “a man, determined to spread hate and violence in South Africa, into our country”.

Should he not respond or reverse his stance, said the party, it will report Gigaba’s decision to the South African Human Rights Commission for an urgent investigation.

Anderson, who heads up Tempe’s Faithful Word Baptist Church, is set to visit Johannesburg in a missionary style evangelical excursion to “win souls” for his hateful cause on 18 September.

He 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.

You can sign the petition to keep Anderson out of South Africa here.