How Africa became the training ground for homophobic and transphobic American Christian conservatives
“American groups like Focus on the Family (considered one of the main drivers of anti-LGBTQIA+ efforts in the Often used interchangeably with Christian Right, but also can describe broader conservative religious coalitions that are not limited to Christians. Can include right-wing Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, and members of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. Learn more ) and the secretive conservative religious organization Fellowship Foundation have each poured millions into sub-Saharan Africa. These and other entities use conservative Christianity and financial influence to exert control over [politicalresearch.org] the sociopolitical culture in Africa via communication networks with African religious figures, educational materials, and social welfare projects. In 2019, the U.S.-based coalition of religious right-wing organizations known as the World Congress of Families held a conference on “family values” in Accra, Ghana. Much of the conference was spent fearmongering on the supposed harms of the LGBTQIA+ acceptance movement. This kind of sustained and manufactured “mass hysteria around homosexuality” has resulted in A form of heterosexism that devalues and scapegoats gay, lesbian, and bisexual people and people in same-gender relationships. Learn more flourishing across a continent, primed by years of colonialism and a recent ramp-up in religiosity.”