Gay rights got a powerful boost on Saturday with no less than Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu throwing his support at the launch of a United Nations-backed Free and Equal campaign in South Africa.

It was not actually a first time for the 81-year-old powerful archbishop to campaign for gay rights, based on videos of his previous talks about the topic.

To stress his backing up the UN campaign and in a declaration that is opposite of what other Christian religious leaders are saying, the archbishop was quoted by BBC as saying, "I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. Or, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place," obviously referring to hell.

"I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this," said the archbishop, who added he is passionate about the gay rights campaign as he is with apartheid.

His statement is opposite that made by televangelist Pat Robertson who recently said that he would like to push the Vomit button - if ever there would be one - on Facebook whenever he sees photos of gay men posted on the social networking site.

Although same-sex relationships are legal in South Africa, the country has some of the worst cases of violence inflicted on gays, said UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay at the launch.

Another example is the discovery in June of the dead body of a lesbian who was sexually abused with a toilet brush handle.

Outside South Africa, gay unions are banned in more than one-third of other countries in the dark continent with death as punishment for violators in five African nations.

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