Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu’s daughter Mpho surrendered her clergy license so she could marry a female atheist professor, according to several reports.
“Because the South African Anglican Church does not recognize our marriage, I can no longer exercise my priestly ministry in South Africa,” Mpho, now Tutu Van Furth, said. “The bishop of the Diocese of Saldanha Bay [Bishop Raphael Hess] was instructed to revoke my (license). I decided that I would give it to him rather than have him take it, a slightly more dignified option with the same effect.”
Tutu Van Furth violated the Anglican Church’s position that marriage is between a man and a woman when she wed academic atheist Marceline Van Furth.
“My wife and I meet across almost every dimension of difference. Some of our differences are obvious; she is tall and white, I am black and vertically challenged. Some of our differences are not apparent at a glance; she is Dutch and an atheist, I am South African and a priest in the Episcopal/Anglican Church,” Tutu Van Furth said.
Her father, Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to South Africa’s brutal Apartheid regime.
Desmond Tutu told media in 2013 he would fiercely fight against discrimination against the gay community as he did against horrific racism.
“I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place,” he said in 2013. “I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.”
