As Archbishop Desmond Tutu Retires, Remembering His Gay Rights Legacy

There's something particularly warm and joyous about the presence of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Maybe it's the fact that such a small man in stature has delivered such a wonderful legacy of peace and justice. Or maybe it's that on basically every human rights or civil rights issue in the world, Archbishop Tutu always comes out on the side of equality, taking a position that may be light years ahead of his time, but the one that is undoubtedly right.

Today, Archbishop Desmond Tutu announced that in the coming months, he's going to completely retire from public life. No more media appearances. No more UN meetings. No more keynote speeches. It's time, according to Archbishop Tutu, for his nearly 80-year-old body to start spending the time he has left with his wife sipping tea, and being present for his family. And therein lies one other thing I love about Archbishop Tutu: humility.

There has perhaps been no clergy member more vocal for LGBT rights than Archbishop Tutu. Whether it's here in the states, in his home country of South Africa, or in countries where homosexuality is violently criminalized, Archbishop Tutu, particularly in the past decade, has never shied away from speaking out for LGBT equality. My favorite quote of his on the subject of gay rights goes all the way back to 2008, where he spoke from a conference in Nairobi, Kenya about the incessant desire of conservative religious leaders to demonize LGBT people.

"I am deeply, deeply distressed that in the face of the most horrendous problems — we’ve got poverty, we’ve got conflict and war, we’ve got HIV/AIDS — and what do we concentrate on? We concentrate on what you are doing in bed," Archbishop Tutu said. No word on who he was directing it to, but I like to think it was a message Archbishop Tutu personally sent to the Dove World Outreach Center, Mike Huckabee, the leaders of the Mormon Church, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Archbishop Tutu then went on to compare laws that prevent LGBT people from receiving the full spectrum of civil rights are just like apartheid.

"To penalize someone because of their sexual orientation is like what used to happen to us; to be penalized for something which we could do nothing (about) — our ethnicity, our race. I would find it quite unacceptable to condemn, persecute a minority that has already been persecuted," Tutu concluded.

Now that's a bold, authentic religious leader speaking. Come this October, there will be a gaping hole in the world of progressive religious activism with the retirement of Archbishop Tutu. Though no matter how you look at it, here is a man who deserves nothing but plaudits for his work to end racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and all of those other blights that continue to set societies back.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons