Powerful Christian leaders in Liberia, a West African nation hard-hit by Ebola, are blaming gays and lesbians for the epidemic from the pulpit. The Liberian Council of Churches announced that the outbreak was a punishment for “immoral acts” including gay sex; and the Archbishop of the Catholic Church of Liberia said that homosexuality was one of the major transgressions for which God was punishing Liberia with Ebola.

Their denunciations have marked LGBT people for violent reprisals.

“Since church ministers declared Ebola was a plague sent by God to punish sodomy in Liberia, the violence toward gays has escalated. They’re even asking for the death penalty. We’re living in fear,” [LGBT activist Leroy] Ponpon told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone from Monrovia. [Reuters]

Ponpon and his allies want the government to step forward and defend the human rights of LGBT people against the bigotry of these religious leaders, the neglect of the police, and threats they face in their communities. 

[Photo credit: Liberian Flag, Nicholas Raymond, Creative Commons.]