Owing to concerns regarding his hate speech, Arizona pastor Steven Anderson has been banned from entering South Africa.
The pastor of the Faithful Word Baptist Church was supposed to visit South Africa later this September for a chain of evangelical events. However, the plans for the visit had to be cancelled as Malusi Gigaba, the Home Affairs Minister, refused visas to Anderson and members of his church.
The Department of Home Affairs of South Africa reports that Gigaba stated, "This is on the basis that I am certain they promote hate speech as well as advocate social violence."
The consequences of this planned visit were far-reaching, and created a controversy among gay rights, LGBT, and human rights activists. The members of these movements pressured the government to ban the pastor from visiting the country. According to a report by Charisma News, the Evangelical Alliance and the Baptist Union of Southern Africa had dissociated themselves from the pastor.
The hostility from the gay community are likely to stem from Anderson's comments made back in 2014, in which he advocated the murder of every LGBT person in order to contain the problems of HIV and AIDS. In a more recent controversy, after 49 people were shot at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Anderson remarked, "There's 50 less pedophiles in this world."
Anderson's views conflict with South Africa's on LGBT and gay issues. The country was the first in Africa to legalize gay marriage in 2006.
Touching upon this subject, Gigaba stated, "It is a constitutional imperative for organs of state and society to protect and jealously defend the rights of all people."