Botswana To Deport Anti-gay US Pastor Steven Anderson

Botswana is to deport a controversial US pastor a week after he was barred from South Africa because of his critical remarks about homosexuality.

A government statement did not say why Steven Anderson had been declared a “prohibited immigrant”.

He was arrested after doing a radio interview in the capital, Gaborone.

Mr Anderson runs the Faithful Word Baptist Church, which says that homosexuality is an abomination punishable by the death penalty.

After his visa for South Africa was rejected last week, the preacher posted on his Facebook page: “Thank God we still have a wide open door in Botswana.”

Homosexual acts are illegal in Botswana, as in many African countries.

Credit: BBC

South Africa Bans Anti-gay US Pastor

South Africa on Tuesday banned a Holocaust-denying, anti-gay American pastor from entering the country, after an outcry from rights groups over his characterisation of gays as “sodomites” and “paedophiles”.

Steven Anderson, who in 2009 infamously prayed for US President Barack Obama’s death, had planned a “soul-winning” visit to South Africa at the weekend.

But Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba declared the Christian preacher a “prohibited person” following objections over his “hate speech”.

“Steven Anderson and members or associates of his church are prohibited from entering the Republic of South Africa,” Gigaba said at a press conference in Cape Town.

“We have a duty to prevent harm and hatred, in all forms, against LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex) as against any other person in a democratic state,” the minister said.

Anderson has frequently courted controversy through his Arizona-based Faithful Word Baptist Church, which preaches a literal reading of the Bible.

A Holocaust denier, he prayed for the death of US President Barack Obama in 2009 over his pro-choice stance on abortion, and called the victims of the November 2015 attack on the Bataclan nightclub in Paris “devil worshipers”.

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