A 53-year-old Nigerian priest in the church of England is fighting to marry his partner, also a Nigerian.
As a priest, the Church allows Jide Macaulay to be gay. But an outright marriage to his partner is not permitted. He can live with him in a celibate relationship but cannot get married in the church. He risks losing his job in the Church if he does.
“To me, that is a great disservice and discrimination against same-gender-loving individuals,” Macaulay, also a lawyer, said in a BBC documentary – Too Gay for God?
His partner lives in their birth country where homosexuality is seen as an aberration only deserving of ostracisation or death. The country banned same-sex marriage in 2014, the same year it became legal in Great Britain.
The Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA), signed into law in 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan, was enacted on the premise that the Nigerian culture is antithetical to homosexuality.
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With the population of the country largely divided between Christians and Muslims, there was also a religious urgency to the prohibition.
A poll conducted by The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs) via NOI Polls, surveyed 2,000 Nigerians of different demographics show that 90% of the 2000 people surveyed supported the SSMPA.
Initially, Macaulay was not ready to come to terms with his sexuality. After arriving in the United Kingdom at age 20, he joined Celestial Church of Christ. There he concentrated on praying his homosexuality away.
He even got married when he was 24 years old. The marriage only lasted three years with a son to show for it.
“Three years after my marriage, I was having a breakdown,” he said.
“So when I told her I’m gay, unfortunately, the separation became acrimonious.”