"This tasteless and scandalous subject" - The politicization of LGBT+ rights in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania

In recent years, an increasing politicization and contestation of LGBT+ rights can be observed on the African continent (and all over the world), in the name of religion, “culture” and tradition. These discourses are often constructed and disseminated by religious actors and employ religious language. But also supposedly “secular” actors make use of religious arguments when politicizing LGBT+ rights. Often, the politicization of homosexuality on the African continent has been explained with high levels of religiosity, however this does not give us any insights into how, why, and when specific (religious) actors politicize homosexuality. It also obscures the often-strategic use of homophobia by religious and political actors on the continent. In this paper I now attempt to analyze the entanglements between religion and politics in politicized debates on homosexuality in Sub-Saharan Africa by looking at the example of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT), which has been outspoken against homosexuality in the past and is a powerful political actor in the country. I will show that it is especially the different relations in the country (to the religious competition and the government) as well as to its transnational networks that make the ELCT’s religious leaders reject LGBT+ rights as loudly as they do. As a political actor, the ELCT constantly oscillates between its self-understanding as a guardian of national morality which has the duty to shape the morality politics in Tanzania on the one hand and the need to ensure its survival as an institution on the other hand, which is linked to the maintenance of its own moral authority in the country. The ELCT has at times been driven by fear of being identified as a “fifth column” paid by its Western partner churches to bring immoral acts into the country, fearing that it might lose its moral authority and political privileges. At other times it has capitalized on the societal resentment of homosexuality to maintain or gain moral authority through driving the public discourse. These dynamics have contributed to a continued politicization of the topic of homosexuality in the country.