ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the highly political nature of the dominant, mostly Pentecostalised, Christian discourses on homosexuality in Zambia. It explores how in the Zambian public debates we do not only see a mobilisation of Christian discourses against homosexuality, but also the beginning of a counter-discourse emerging. The chapter also examines the contribution of a local Zambian NGO that, in 2013, spoke out publicly in support of the rights of sexual minorities, using an explicitly Christian rationale and reversing the argument of Zambia as a Christian nation to support its stance. The dominant narrative about the relation between religion and human rights, and particularly the relation between religion and LGBTI human rights in Africa, is one of opposition. In the context of Zambia, this opposition is particularly manifested in the emergence of a dominant public and political discourse in which Zambia is imagined as a Christian nation that cannot recognise the human rights of sexual minorities.
