“Kill the gays” pastor Steven Anderson has been banned from travelling to South Africa.
Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba yesterday said Anderson is not welcome in the country due to his homophobic rants.
Gigaba said last week Anderson would be allowed into SA, although he would be closely watched.
But after Anderson called him a “liar” and “vile politician” on YouTube last week, Gigaba changed his mind.
And just hours before Gigaba’s announcement, Anderson also took a swipe at SA’s clergy.
In an interview with Cape Talk, he said: “People like [Archbishop Emeritus] Desmond Tutu go parading around and talk about their pro-homosexual beliefs but they did not get that from the Bible and any Bible believing Christian will know that.”
He added: “The religious leaders are a bunch of perverts themselves like that Desmond Tutu who goes around in a pink dress.”
The Faithful World Baptist Church leader and 20 members of his flock were meant to travel to Joburg this weekend for a “soul winning” mission in Boksburg.
But his referencing of gay and lesbian people as “sodomites” as well as previous comments that “there are now 50 less paedophiles in this world”, after a deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in America, has now been deemed as hate speech.
Gigaba says the Immigration Act of 2002 “prohibits admission of foreigners likely to promote hate speech”.
He also banned associates and other members of The Faithful Baptist Church from coming to South Africa.
Anderson has vowed to visit neighbouring Botswana instead, posting on Facebook: “I feel sorry for people who live in South Africa.”
Responding to Anderson’s comments, the Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu van Furth, of The Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, says: “It is impossible to represent the God of love by preaching hate.”
Mpho Tutu is a lesbian and married her partner in January this year.
Meanwhile, Reverend Oscar Bougardt of Strandfontein, who supported Anderson’s visit, wrote on Facebook: “This is indeed a very sad day for freedom of religion in a so-called democratic South Africa. Why must a hand full of homosexuals decide who comes to the country and who is not coming to the country?”