Nigerian bishop says gay people are "Not fit to live"?

UPDATE: Mark Harris reports that "...the reporter for the News Agency of Nigeria may have misquoted Bishop Orama of Nigeria, or worse deliberately done so. UPI has pulled the story pending further investigation." I'm happy to hear that, but the environment that spawns even the possibility of such statements continues to exist in far too many quarters and from far too many people, including clergy.

Normally I attempt to stay somewhat out of the current wrangling in the church regarding sexual ethics. As a centrist, I try to steer a balanced, middle course. However, every time I'm tempted to veer a little towards the conservative end of the spectrum, a conservative cleric comes along and gives me something that either causes me to veer the other way or, occasionally, just makes my jaw drop. Such was a quote by the Anglican Bishop of Uyo (in Nigeria). A recent article quoted him as follows:

"Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God's purpose for man,'' the Bishop said."

I cannot believe that a man of God, someone who professes to be a Christian, would seriously say that anyone is "insane, satanic, and...not fit to live." Such rhetoric, far from being helpful, appears to indicate, at least to me, that the "listening process" mandated by the much-referred-to Lambeth resolution has had next to no effect in parts of the Anglican Communion.

In any case, as the September 30 "deadline" looms, it may be well to recall that some of the "orthodox" harbor the above view. Many do not, but there is a strain of folks in the seperatist movement who regard homosexuality as utterly evil and those who "practice" homosexuality as people who should be cast into the darkness or the fires of hell. Hard to see a via media (middle way) here...