Davis Mac-Iyalla, 35, is founder and director of the country's only gay-rights organization, Changing Attitude-Nigeria, which advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the Anglican Church and elsewhere in Nigeria.

The Episcopal Church is the American wing of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes 80 million members in 154 countries. In 2003, the Episcopal Church consecrated the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop. Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola has been a leading critic against the ordination of gay bishops and the inclusion of GLBT persons in the life of the church.

Mac-Iyalla is a leading voice fighting a proposed bill in his country that would make it illegal for gays to organize, meet in public, or even visit a GLBT website. He has received numerous death threats for his activism, has been fired from his job as a school principal, and forced to live in exile in a neighboring country in West Africa. Prior to declaring his homosexuality, he was an active member of the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

In May 2007, he convened a meeting of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists from seven West African countries, for the first regional conference of its kind. His recent tour of the U.S. has taken him to 20 cities, and he has addressed the executive council of the Episcopal Church about the dangers faced by GLBT Nigerians.

As schism has spread through the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, fueled by foreign archbishops and right-wing think tanks, I have watched in growing alarm as the Anglican Church of Nigeria has pressured the government to pass the most sweeping anti-Gay bill in the world, aimed at silencing Davis Mac-Iyalla, director of Changing Attitude-Nigeria, a support group for Gay and Lesbian Anglicans.

Davis has been falsely arrested after printed materials were found in his car, beaten and held for days. He's received death threats and been forced to flee his home. The Rev. Atunde Popoola, canon for communication for the Archbishop of Abuja, has hounded Davis, denied he exists, denied he's an Anglican, accused him of crimes, and blogged on numerous Anglican websites denouncing him.

This is a pack of lies. I've seen Davis's Church membership card, photos of his first communion and his licensing as a layreader. He was even knighted by the late Bishop of Otupko. (Knighting is an honor given to laypeople in the Nigerian Church.) When that bishop died, Davis was fired as principal of a Church-run school, because he's Gay.

Even though he's in hiding and never published his whereabouts, the thugs found him. Death threats were delivered to his door last December.