Opinion: To Be A Homosexual in Africa Today

The freedoms I have

Sometimes I forget that privileges and conveniences I have by reason of birth and location, taking many things for granted that many others desire to see, if they can beyond, the next hour.

The life I have today I cherish, the health I have has been a constant blessing - each day I desire the world is a better place for all people, sadly, for some, each day is a worse hell than the day before.

I have no answers to many of these problems, but I hope for the few I meet, I can seed a word of hope, some encouragement and maybe more to brighten them up towards the things they face.

Justified to do justice

Yet, I have watched as people secure in the sense of who they think they are from their religion, their status, their morality, their identity or their beliefs of superiority bray like an irate mob to consume those who are different.

They have found an easy outlet of convenience, justified in their words and deeds to act in the stead of God and culture to remove from their communities those that do not conform.

The hatred dripping from their fangs like vampires after a feast of bloody abandon, they have whipped up a frenzy of hysteria; we must protect our values from corruption, but the corruption they perceive has always been part of our humanity, from the time there was the opportunity between people to find affection and express that affection as intimately as they dare to care.

Difference and diversity

Before the law that instructs about whether things we right or wrong, we existed almost oblivious of each other yet enjoyed the brotherhood and neighbourliness of our humanity until knowledge came of how different we were.

Some celebrated and embraced our diversity, others exploited and exacerbated our differences, the former was the selfless act of love in the mould of the Good Samaritan, and the latter was the selfish act of hatred giving scope for unimaginable evil.

Yet, we are allowed the courage of our convictions to take the easy path of convenience and follow the crowd of thoughts that would ostracise the other to belong to the many.

We have schooled ourselves to not acquiesce, groomed ourselves never to tolerate, and decided we cannot accommodate those that are to our thinking different, bad, dangerous, evil, degenerate, repulsive, hell-bound and condemned.

A fellow human being

Such is the homosexual to many of us, a fellow human being, who should if we had our way never be fellow, nor dare to be human for their being does not deserve to walk the streets we walk.

But think on this matter; in any population on the face of the earth and the diversity that each unit when compartmentalised might contain, anything from 1% to 10% or more would be so radically different from us – shall we treat them like dogs for their status, their race, their tribe, their handicap, their sexuality, their speech, their beliefs, their views, their culture, their lifestyles, their origin, their mix, their loves, their hates and much else?

Then think on this, if you belonged to any minority where the tyranny of the majority reigned supreme to blackmail, to persecute, to bully, to prosecute, to excoriate, to condemn, to lynch and to put to death.

That is the unbearable existence of the gay African (a fellow human being) in their hostile communities; anything up to and possible more than 80 million* Africans who have always lived in Africa and hardly been exposed to influences outside Africa are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual or intersexual, they have nowhere to go but to live in Africa, where they belong, by birth and by right.

*[The 80 million figure is an estimate of possibly 8% of the total population not being heterosexual. More references appear below the blog.]

Worst examples of leadership

The purpose of leadership in the face of vulnerable minorities is not to accentuate the differences amongst the people they lead that would persecute the few, but to demonstrate the magnanimous virtues of maturity, to offer all the protections of the law possible and to moderate all their expressed views and actions to minorities amongst them.

This is the failure of leadership we have witnessed in politics and governance being demonstrated in pandering to populist demagoguery, for the truth is that homosexuals have always been amongst us in Africa until someone found some political gain in pointing fingers at them.

The almost 80 million African homosexuals are not going to disappear overnight because some law has been promulgated to the glee and satisfaction of the majority.

What are you doing?

The lynching of homosexuals in streets near you, where you have given your support to depriving your own fellow citizen and countryman of life by your words, your actions or your silence would not eliminate them.

By God, if sexuality were a matter of choice like one could change clothes, homosexuals would definitely wear different clothes from what they wear now to conform and be assimilated into your norm.

For all those that debate and contend that homosexuality is a choice and a lifestyle, if you walked a long hard mile in the shoes of a homosexual, your choice and lifestyle would be that of a heterosexual but we have enough science to prove that homosexuality is as set as the colour of your skin – you can tone or tan your skin, but you cannot change your race.

Address your humanity

As we acquiesce to the 21^st Century extermination of the African homosexual, each one of almost 80 million of them, the lives lost in World War I which we celebrate the centenary of this year and those lost in World War II combined, along with the gruesome evil of the Holocaust, would not begin to number close to the task of ridding ourselves of this homosexual menace.

This is not about the West, this is about our own, our own people, fellow human beings, their lives, their livelihoods, their existence, their pursuit of happiness, all quietly seeking to fulfil their potential in their own countries, provinces, states and communities, like any other person born into this world desires, given the opportunity.

If you for a moment were homosexual, what would you do?

Address your humanity and with that see the humanity in others.

Thank you.

Other readings

Blog - Human Rights Day 2011: Gay Rights are Human Rights

Blog - Nigeria: Arrest Him! He's Homosexual!

LGBT rights in Africa - Wikipedia

Gay Men in Africa & HIV/AIDS – AVERT

What Percentage of the Population Is Gay? - Gallup

Populations of Africa - Wikipedia

Nigeria: Arrest Him! He's Homosexual!

The sketch

Alice More (Wife): Arrest him!

Sir Thomas More (England's Lord High Chancellor): For what?

Alice More: He's dangerous!

William Roper (Son-in-law): For all we know he's a spy!

Margaret More (Daughter): Father, that man's bad!

Sir Thomas: There's no law against that!

William Roper: There is God's law!

Sir Thomas: Then let God arrest him!

Alice More: While you talk he's gone!

Sir Thomas: And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law.

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas: Yes!

Sir Thomas: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?

Sir Thomas: This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?

Sir Thomas: Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Sketch from A Man For All Seasons about Sir Thomas More from What Delicate Balance? by John Loeffler.

Signed in silence

I watched on social media yesterday as word got round that the President of Nigeria had signed into law the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill (SSMPB) which had wide ranging powers to persecute and prosecute Nigerian citizen homosexuals and their sympathisers with threats of jail sentences of up to 14 years. [The Nation] [Wikipedia] [SSMPB (PDF)]

There is no point dwelling on the minutiae of that law, because there is a wider issue at play that we fail to recognise can be the unintended consequence of this type of law.

At no time was Nigeria under the threat of sweeping homosexual matrimony invading the sanctity of temple or place of worship for solemnisation, the majority of the population is well schooled in the revulsion of homosexuality from a sexual perspective, that they would willingly gather in mobs to lynch in the name of whatever deity they worship to mete out just justice without repercussion.

Stones in hand

At tip of the tongue and with means to act, they have chapter and verse from any religious tome of your choosing to commit the homosexual instantly to the abyss of infernal perdition. We need no encouragement in what is innately our natural disposition.

Homosexuals in Nigeria have no pride marches, society takes no pride in them, the family can’t have pride for them and in essence the person so afflicted in the minds of the assailant is not proud of who they are. They are stuck in labyrinthic closets or acquiescing to societal pressures fulfilling the rites of passage of marriage whilst satisfying a deeper need on the down low.

Yet, we have a law for what does not exist, which can never get popular and has little chance in this generation of becoming acceptable, in our statute books. An exercise in legislative indolence signed off to the hysterical mesmerisation of the people who think this is the best thing the government ever did.

Now they've come

They have come for the homosexual with the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill and because many are not homosexual they like the crowd that gathered at the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate have been excited by the leaders to cry out loud until they are hoarse – Crucify them!

One cannot be oblivious of history, for the persecution of the minority, the different, the castigated, the powerless and the other has allowed tyranny to lay hold until there is none to stand true for justice.

The words of Martin Niemöller come to mind in all its contexts and ramifications and for this piece, may I prefix it without necessarily changing the whole premise to the Nigerian setting, because there would be people to eventually fill those cadres of offence when sufficient momentum is gained for a new moral law on dressing, on sayings, on actions and much else, in what is becoming a sham of a democracy.

First they came for the Gays, and I did not speak out—because I was not gay.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

No business of the state

For the state has deviated from civil law to moral codes as much of the debate that fuelled support for this law had nothing to do with civil coexistence of the diversity of humanity and human nature, but some selective affinity to Mosaic rules designed specifically to differentiate the Israelites of the times of Exodus from other tribes. I digress on this essential matter of conscience above all else.

Where this becomes a problem is whilst in general, we have agreement amongst religious beliefs, we have no consonance of systems of worship and essentially do not believe the same.

For each person to their level of adherence can decide that they subscribe to their understanding of God’s law to do whatever they will or think is God’s mind about issues, even if others do not so subscribe to that system of beliefs or believe in any of that stuff. Yes, to some, stuff is article of faith and to others, it is just stuff.

Thinking for ourselves

When a man suggests he is only answerable to God or his religion, the state loses the power to provide the impartiality of justice to all its citizenry. For God’s law when taken to the street imposes sanction without appeal, empowering abuse without redress, yet self-justifies the presumably self-appointed custodians of those laws.

This was well argued in the submission of Lord Justice Laws on the issue of separation of religion and state.

“The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the state, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.”

In other words, these laws whilst appearing to be founded on firm moral principle, they offer no protections for the people in a democracy when they are caught on the wrong side of it, either by reason of being criminalised or by the abuse of process to persecute the innocent.

Blog - The case for State law over religious guidance

Arrest him, he’s homosexual

This takes us back to the sketch at the beginning of this blog on the use of the law, the misuse of the law and the abuse of authority.

The Lord High Chancellor had his family appeal to his sentiment to arrest a man because he was dangerous, and in terms, the homosexual in Nigeria is deemed dangerous not for anything that affects us personally, but for the satisfaction of our moral sentiments.

And by God’s law in the arguments proffered when debating the bill in the legislature, we have created something to ensnare people by criminalising the bedroom of others who do not subscribe to what is our norm or our normality.

In the voices of Margaret More, Alice More and William Roper, we seek to persecute, prosecute, impugn, damage and criminalise deploying every fallacy available to justify our stance (against everything different, unusual, misunderstood, reviled, especially homosexuality), by appealing to every sentiment to suborn the objective assessment of the facts, but there stands amongst us a Sir Thomas More.

This is a very bad law

He brings down every fallacy from hysteria to tradition, upholding the primacy of man’s law and its purpose for justice and fairness to all. For our wider humanity which easily finds ways to exacerbate difference and punish the same is better served in finding unity of purpose, in according fundamental human rights to each existence, to every expression and to the pursuit of happiness.

The Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill whichever way you want to look at it is a bad law, it is odious, inhuman, unconscionable, contemptible and celebratory of the worst of our human expression in the name of some presumed morality – the fight for its repeal has begun.

Every Nigerian homosexual in the 21^st Century should have a right to exist and thrive in their own country, fulfilling their potential without hindrance of the state through the criminalisation of who they are.

For all the sentiment we might have about what is the reason for homosexuality, science and psychology has gone beyond that to prove it is natural, sticking to the age-old religious acceptance that the earth is flat does not change the scientific fact that the earth is round, and it is the earth that revolves around the sun rotating on its axis to make night and day. 

I stand for the diversity of humanity expression, the protection of the rights of all, similar, different, powerless, powerful, heterosexual, asexual, celibate and homosexual, old and young, the many and the few. Repeal the law!

Other notes

Blog - Human Rights Day 2011: Gay Rights are Human Rights

Blog - Homosexuality in Nigeria - Condemning bigots who seek death

Blog - Editorial: Legislating for the Unforeseeable of Same-Sex Marriage

Facts About Homosexuality and Mental Health - UCDavis

Homosexuality – Wikipedia

Blog - Decade Blogs - Editi Effiong - Dear religious people, let's kill all the gay people

Thought Picnic: At church with Sy Rogers

Not finding a place

I have over time grown averse to Christian preachers that portend to speak about matters that concern gender, sexuality and relationships because they have not seemed to have a message that resonates, informs my humanity or leave me edified in any way apart from highlight my apparent inadequacies.

In fact, I could give time to many of those issues, sexual abuse in childhood, sexuality, identity and a state of elderly bachelorhood that is not prospective of getting hitched for all sorts of reasons and in particular, that of health where the dangers loom and problems are not in the purview of natural solutions.

It is so difficult to find relevance within the church community when you are in your mid-forties, never married, without kids and not in the “risk category” of the bliss of walking down the aisle.

They are not addressing my kind of single

The singles meetings and events are usually geared towards those planning on becoming couples, the participants would rarely be above 35 and all seem to be looking for cues to finding that perfect match and needing help to deal with the issues that surround the preparation for marriage

At least, I have not seen or heard programmes for spinsters or bachelors of a certain age, we are the anomaly, the minority and for convenience we attempt to be invisible.

Invisibility helps avoid questions which have no easy answers, it protects from the avalanche of scripture to conform to the typical church-type – the seeking the wife, the courtship, the marriage, the children and everything that it entails.

An unusual man with a resonating message

So, as I got to church today, I was in for a surprise that I took second helpings of the offering, the preacher was introduced to a standing ovation, I had never heard him speak before.

His mannerisms were familiar long before he spoke and by the time he did, I thought, this would be interesting as my mind wondered about the many opportunities I have rejected to participate in church leadership, even at the lowest level.

This man has been on a journey, a long one at that - 30 years of ministry, with vivid pictures of a past that would crash the careers of motivational speakers talk less of a minister of the gospel but he had walked in some really tight shoes, through thorny thickets, sometimes bruised, sometimes battered but unbowed with a message that connected to the humanity of all.

The matter of sexuality is a broader topic beyond homosexuality, it is about struggles, identity, relationships, abuse and addictions; it is about love, lust, loneliness, trust, character and more – we all have a weakness that we have allowed ourselves to be defined by.

He had an amazing Christian message that I have never heard from other preachers of note who seemed to have a binary view of things where you were either in or out, right or wrong, on the road to perdition or to paradise – on the contemporary issues of the day the savvy preachers sit on the fence, but he directed his concepts of religion to our humanity.

Seeking relevance in the religions we follow

I have always been of the view that the function of religion is to serve humanity, where it appears to fail or sacrifice humanity on the altar of custom, tradition, creed, code, rule or method; it becomes like salt that has lost its savour and that is the Genesis of cultism.

I see too many trends and fads within church organisations that leave me less affiliated than is necessary to be called having a membership, where things begin to coalesce around leaders or as it were personalities, mannerisms take hold – I have never been an organisation man per se, my life experiences in many ways inform my need for independence and great latitude at maintaining that.

However, the church I have attended sporadically is probably the one I have felt most comfortable in, if I were to attend another it would probably be a return to High-Church Anglicanism than seek out another charismatic denomination.

Life happens and never suddenly

The speaker’s life experiences were the template of his message, how his encounters with God brought him through an early life of parental estrangement, bereavement, sexual abuse, homosexuality, transsexuality at the point of undergoing a sex change through the moment that he got a revelation of love to forming new relationships, courtship, marriage, parenthood and now he is about to be a grandfather.

There were no moments of the suddenly or instant but a process, the humour and his way with words made very difficult subjects accessible and the delivery allowed for everyone to find a way to relate in different ways.

His message was not an ex-gay message, he did not repudiate the past but gave relevance to how the past could help appreciate the present and guide in times of challenges.

Knowledge and revelation

I liked his example of the difference between knowledge and revelation – If one were in a dark room and were told it contained amazing works of art on the walls, you could believe the story and probably be convinced by the narrator but that is knowledge, when the light is switched on in that room – knowledge becomes an experience, a revelation, an encounter.

We all need encounters with God in our Christian life; it would help that we journal these encounters to keep us in remembrance of how we have been touched because we have as part of our humanity the inability to imprint well those encounters to maintain our confidence in being able to meet ever increasing challenges in the Christian walk.

Between loving and using

These encounters are should be clearly differentiated from the typical, in his words; “I’m sorry, forgive me, give me, hurry up” relationships; created on what one pastor so succinctly put up on Facebook the other day – Love God and Use Money, not the other way round.

That interchange of “Love” and “Use” is what determines the success that one makes of their religion and the ability to meet challenges with the power that is on offer to live wholesome victorious lives.

By the time he came to end of his message, I walked away with an impartation, the kind he hoped to offer which was hoping that something from his life would in some way add to our lives to help us understand our humanity and core message of Christianity.

My takeaways

It is part of human nature to have appetites but we can chose to fulfil them our way but God offers the best means for satisfying those appetites; if we find ourselves running from God rather than running to Him, we are on the wrong path.

Obviously, each individual who heard him would have to take from his message what helps them, but I can say that I am glad for hearing Sy Rogers [1] tell his story and it was one that gave me a kind of hope I have never before thought within grasp.

However, he had some quotes [2] that would keep the message in our consciousness long after the encounter and I found a list of them that I heard during his talk.

“God would rather have you messy than not have you at all.”

“Sure, God will take you like you are, but He will take you further.”

“There’s a big difference between what you think you know about God versus an experience with Him.”

“Change is not your goal—that’s an inevitable byproduct of growth. Growing in God is your great goal. As you grow things can change.”

I was blessed. Thank you.

Postscript

There is every possibility and in fact, reality, that Sy Rogers is dogged with controversy, some will choose to define him by his past but it does not make his story any less relevant to those who search for knowledge and truth of how someone has gained a fulfilling life experience in the midst of difficult choices, circumstances and situations.

I will not call Sy Rogers ex-gay, former gay or any other label, in Christianity everyone is a former something, the question is what are you now, in spite of your past?

So, I have referenced his biography [3] from this site and it is incumbent on the individual to use knowledge with a sense of wisdom and discernment.

Reference

[1] Sy Rogers Communications - International Communicator and Minister

[2] Sy Rogers - Quotes

[3] Sy Rogers | Ex-gayTruth.com

Thought Picnic: Me and Mr Long

Did he do it?

It could almost be mischievous if it was not true or it had the semblance of truth just as we are made to understand that there is no smoke without fire.

The countless children that had fun at Neverland Ranch which turned out to be either a lifetime experience of glee for some and a ruinous assault on the person of others left us reeling with incredulity.

The power of means to attract the young into the enclave of mentoring or support and then use that influence to procure sexual gratification still shocks beyond words.

In those cases, settlements were reached but nothing proven beyond reasonable doubt that the events our imaginations had carried well beyond the incredible really happened.

The accusations could die out but the truth might never materialise because beyond having confused the sexuality of the “victims”, their characters will be assailed to the point that they might become suicidal if they are not already so from their supposed ordeal.

Me and Mr Long

Me and Mr Long seems to be the chorus from four young men who were groomed, feted, lavished and kept by the pastor of a mega-church whose pulpit and activism against homosexuality is publicly strident, fundamentalist, intolerant and persuasive.

There might well be enough resources to make this all go away but it would not go away easy, if what they have stated did not happen it must make one wonder what act so despicable Bishop Eddie Long might have committed or abetted for these men to concoct these long tales.

On the balance of probability one might be swayed to point fingers but let us put that aside and deal with a more pertinent issue, the merciless, heartless and dispassionate assault on homosexuality from the pulpit.

In black churches there seems to be this idea that homosexuality is a white man’s thing, where black men appear to exhibit this “trait” it is viewed as an affront to masculinity which is most expressed with machismo and a lascivious heterosexual sexual appetite with overflowing testosterone apparently curtailed by religious instruction.

Accommodation and intolerance

Adultery and fornication even though abominations by fundamentalist appropriation find better expression and tolerance in the church than homosexuality could ever dare to dream of.

The mantra of loving the sinner and hating the sin usually gets conflated into hating the person and closing the doors to the church to them except where they subscribe to gruelling psychological-reorientation called counselling which is a kind of aversion therapy to make albeit homosexuals apparently heterosexual.

It creates another more complex person, a secret homosexual and a public heterosexual, someone on the down-low whose appetite for homosexual copulation is sated whilst pretending to be a devoted and committed husband with loving wife and kids.

One expression with another lifestyle

It is well for some to have nothing against homosexuals but to rail against their lifestyle when no one asks about a heterosexual having to live a heterosexual lifestyle – maybe Bishop Eddie Long knows seeing that the documents entered in court show he was about to use scripture to sow his wild oats in strange fields.

At the end, the advocacy against gay marriage is interesting because it is not gay marriage that affects the institution of marriage but the infidelity and untruthfulness of people in the traditional institution of marriage that undermines its foundations, principles and sacramental values – all that gay marriage is seeking is just the right for partners in those relationships to find significance in the face of the law.

The words of Bishop Long’s predecessor Reverend Kenneth L. Samuel are foreboding as they are insightful on this matter as he said, “Whether it’s true or not, the church has an issue of duplicity, hypocrisy and denial in terms of human sexuality that the church has to deal with. Unfortunately, I think Bishop Long is emblematic of a culture ... that causes pastors and parishioners to preach and testify one thing and practice something else.”

Me and Mr Long – the refrain

Bishop Eddie Long would no doubt fight this to the bitter end but I cannot help but hear the song ringing incessantly in my head.

Me and Mr Long
We got a thing going on
We both know it is wrong [At least Mr Long should if the boys don’t]
But it’s much too strong to let it go now.

References and other reading

Men allege sexual coercion by prominent Atlanta pastor - CNN.com (Includes PDFs of lawsuits filed)

Fourth lawsuit filed against Georgia pastor - CNN.com

Bishop Eddie Long | Powerful pastor’s ministry put to test | ajc.com

Why black church culture rejects homosexuality - CNN.com

Me and Mrs. Jones: Lyrics from Answers.com

Europe: No hiding place for Homo-nationalism

Minority is not inferiority

This represents a difficult subject and one of a very intimate nature that would well benefit from the kind of articulation I have brought to many issues that I have covered on my blog in the last 6 years.

I have been fortunate to have been born in Europe but had part of my development experience in Africa making me a product of the influence of all the cultures in which I have lived.

As a person of colour, one is in a minority but it does not then mean one should as well assume an inferiority complex. I have been blessed with a sense of awareness and being that has allowed me wade through the unfortunate scrapes with racism, snide belittlement and patronising conduct without being so negatively affected.

Comfortable in one’s skin

One somehow has a quality of assertiveness, if not wit where such encounters occur but not the legs to run when those situations have turned unnecessarily violent; in any case, I have refused to allow those experiences to take root and destroy the quality of self-esteem I believe I possess.

One place however where I have had some difficulty is where within a minority you then find vestiges of bigoted, intolerant, reprehensible behaviour, that just leaves you almost speechless, agitated and occasionally annoyed.

As I attended the Berlin Christopher Street Day [1] (CSD) celebrations, whilst I got wind of the event beforehand, I did not stay to witness it because I was quite exhausted and wanted to return to my hotel to rest.

Distancing from Homo-nationalism

Judith Butler [2], a renowned philosopher was being honoured with the ZivilCourage prize by the Berlin CSD, she was present but in the speech that they thought would be an acceptance speech, she declined the award castigating the pall of homo-nationalism that had become integral to the LGBT [3] movement in Germany and Europe to the exclusion of the recognition of the work, activities and plight of LGBT minorities.

It was a bold and brave stance to take [4] though the Berlin CSD organisers refused to engage or address the issues she raised and exhorted everyone to party on regardless.

A debate must ensue beyond the stereotypes that suppose that immigrants from the Global South are generally homophobic, intolerant, isolationist and illiberal in what has become a racist complicity perpetrated by organisations that are supposed to know better with their history of struggles for recognition, rights, fairness and justice.

A minority ignoring their minorities

The fact is we find such attitudes too amongst right-wing elements of Western societies and their fundamentalist counterparts around the world who abuse the purpose of religion to alienate, castigate, bastardise and condemn others in their quest for some sort of communal purity.

In the process, we forget that even amongst the indigenes of the Global South are people very much like us who suffer persecution in their homelands, rejection from their communities and in some cases serious violence amongst us in the West as their so-called loved ones portend to restore honour to their flawed ideals of perfection by eliminating what they consider as different or in the extreme abominable.

It is a shame that the seemingly emancipated networks of support created by organisations like the CSD cater mainly for their own without giving recognition to the activities, travails or issues that similar organisations catering for minorities try to address.

You come out to their public activities and might well assume that all minorities are heterosexual apart from the token few that dot the landscape only for their brazenness and boldness.

Killed for her sexuality

I am therefore pleased that not only has Judith Butler shed light on a subject many do not want to address, Angela Davis [5] has added her voice [6] to the matter.

What is interesting on the whole is that this situation is not limited to Berlin or Germany. In October 2009, an 18-year old Belgo-Moroccan girl, Layla Hachichi [7], was brutally murdered by her parents in an exorcism ritual which on examination was to rid the girl of her lesbianism.

The parents for all sorts of absurd reasons with the fact that they live in the West have surely not been able to understand the society they reside in. Whilst they might not have been able to accept the idea of their daughter’s homosexuality, the heinous crime of murder described in ways that make mediaeval torture tame is completely unforgiveable.

A silence so despicable

The sadder aspect of this is that it took almost six months for the Belgian umbrella LGBT organisation, Çavaria [8], to comment on the matter with the excuse that they did not have enough detail on the matter.

When an organisation like Çavaria is afraid to speak up for one of their own who just happens to be of immigrant stock for the fear of hurting the sensibilities of the community that has committed such atrocious crimes against a person for their sexuality, you begin to wonder if those organisation are from hence worthy of existence having failed to speak up for the voiceless, the helpless, the incapable and the unfortunate.

To redeem themselves they have assumed the stance of amicus curiae in the case giving them access to all facts of the case seeking justice for the girl. Though one must state that the facts leading to the murder of the girl had appeared in more than 60 articles, the excuse is flimsy at best.

No hiding place for Homo-nationalism

With Judith Butler, Angela Davis and many other commentators giving voice to this travesty, LGBT organisations would no longer have a hiding place when they are derelict in their responsibilities to all their constituency; obvious members, the oppressed, the ostracised or the afraid - that includes minorities in the West and those that suffer under unspeakable sanction in faraway lands.

Any LGBT gathering that fails to accommodate the minorities as part and parcel of the whole representation of the LGBT community at home first and abroad would cast the organisers as hypocritical and devoid of values, seriously unworthy of the social justice mantle they claim to have and detriment to any further struggle for rights and fairness as they will be open to justifiable criticism and derision. They have no hiding place anymore.

Sources

[1] Christopher Street Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Judith Butler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] LGBT - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Judith Butler turns down civil courage award from Berlin Pride: ‘I must distance myself from racist complicity’ Loomnie

[5] Angela Davis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[6] Angela Davis on Judith Butler’s refusal of the CSD Civil Courage Prize

[7] Gay News ® : Letter from Brussels - Thousand and One Nights

[8] Çavaria | opkomen voor holebi's en transgenders

[9] News in brief | Flanders Today Published November 2009

Nigeria: The false debates on same sex marriage

A bill to kill

This blog has been edited and parts of it have been rewritten to offer more clarity.

I have decided to tackle this issue head-on because I am fed up of our democratic representatives debating with fallacies and untruths fed by bigotry, ignorance, stupidity and religious fundamentalism.

It is just completely out of order to have seemingly educated and enlightened people engage in subjective discourse on serious matters that need most clear-mindedness and fair-mindedness to arrive at objective conclusions.

I wrote in my last blog [Blog-City] that the bill providing an outright ban on same sex marriage had passed in the Nigerian legislature [Sun News Online] when in fact it had just scaled though the 2nd reading in the House of Representatives unanimously [HRW].

The seriousness of the issue prompted the Human Rights Watch to write to the President about their concerns for basic human rights. [HRW]

Busybody representatives in full flow

Note: I would be quoting liberally from the Sun article [Sun News Online].

It is interesting to note that the bill was sponsored by the deputy chairman of the House Committee on Steel [Afrol News], at a time that Nigeria is vying to become leader in steel production in Africa after having lost the premier oil producer position in Africa to Angola [Reuters].

His bill was supported by the chairman of the House Committee on Diaspora [IGLHRC] which probably indicates that lady is completely oblivious of the many Nigerian homosexuals who live abroad away from this despicable persecution mob.

Then another chairman of the House Committee on Gas Resources [NPR] in the midst of the gas flaring environmental disasters and that of Steel added their views before deputy chairman of the House Committee on Human Rights [HRW] added her tuppence to the debate.

The links beside each House Committee would suggest to me that they should be very busy doing other productive things more aligned to their briefs rather than to engage in this idle banter promoting prejudice and religious fundamentalism.

The reality is this kind of topic does not require the exacting thoroughness of producing dossiers, interpreting hard facts as contained in statistical data or burning the midnight oil seeking to knock out policy documents for serious legislative debate and progressive politics.

Anyone can engage in this debate as an expert, drawing from their wealth of bigotry, their resources of prejudice having been schooled in unfounded generalisations and grounded in religious fundamentalism – you might well throw a rabid dog into the pack and get a vote of confidence.

This is easy work for legislators who get paid so much and produce so little as it offers the opportunity for people to say the most dastardly and repulsive things and still garner applause from the floor – we are being short-changed big time.

The debate or the prejudices

And so the debate with the context that, “all condemned such marriage, saying that it was immoral, against African tradition and God designs for human being.” It would make you wonder if you were in a debating chamber of democratic discourse or in a seminary.

But what is striking about this is that the House was about to legislate on an issue of morality, not criminality, policy nor point of law but some deep seated prejudice that has no particular basis in fact.

As one representative goes on to say, he “noted that the act depicts moral decadence in any given society and a digress from God’s purpose of creating marriage institution, stressing that such act as stated in both Islam and Christian religions remain ungodly act.”

The bad faith of the House

Whatever happened to other religions including indigenous home growth animist faiths where they might not be so particular about who is sleeping with whom?

Besides, would Christians who eat pork then be more unclean than Muslims? It just goes to show that we cannot have legislative debates so heavily tinged with religious sentiments not expressed by the clergy but by nominal adherents with a fanatical bent.

An elected representative then says, “It is against my faith to have same sex marriage. It is against our penal code to even engage in activities that are as quarrelsome as this between man and man, as well as women and women.”

I do sympathise that it is against his faith but is he there to represent his faith, the collective Nigerian faiths or ensure that there is a clear separation between the accepted religious systems and the State?

The issue might well be a matter of conscience but democratic representation does not confer the right to impose personal prejudices on a national debate; in matters like this the representative should abstain because expressing such a contextual prejudice at jury selection would definitely lead to disqualification.

As for the penal code, it is in need of repeal, it arrived in our statute books by reason of colonisation and those who colonised us have already repealed those intemperate laws in their home countries.

This gets my rag

Then the nuclear option; get emotive and do not let the truth get in the way of the sensational as one representative says, “It is time for us at this point in time to think back and look at the scourge of HIV/AIDS. The greatest means of transmitting this disease is through the act of ‘sodomy’. Young children are already victims of been lured into this cruel and unimaginable act. It is an act of perversion.”

The part about young children being lured into sexual acts be those homosexual or heterosexual needs to be in a children’s rights bill and should not be conflated with one that talks about marriage which would essentially be amongst adults.

The scourge of HIV/AIDS in Africa is very evident but its prevalence and demography in the West is completely different from that in Africa – the legislator here is incorrectly asserting circumstances in another location, it is both dishonest and unconscionable whilst falsely labelling victims in Africa who have inadvertently been infected by other means.

Especially, in the case of victim wives, mothers [Isiugo-Abanihe(PDF)], children and those infected through blood transfusion, [NIHGOV] the people deserve a better voice clamouring for good and affordable health services available in the cities and the rural areas.

As Nigeria accounts for 10% of the global HIV/AIDS burden coming to about 4 million inhabitants that are sero-positive with the possibility of that creating 3 million orphans by the end of the decade. [USAID]

We can safely conclude that orphans are not offspring of homosexual intercourse but are products of heterosexual consummation where as another reference suggests prevalent extra-marital relationships increase the risk profile [Isiugo-Abanihe(PDF)].

The numbers are a sad story

Sadly, it is women who carry the greater burden of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria accounting for more than 50% of those infected, with children accounting for 8% [HIV InSite] and it is quite unlikely that this is by reason of the immoral behaviour that so excites the legislators.

Basically, we have a health emergency in Nigeria because of HIV/AIDS [AVERT] [Wikipedia] and malaria [HIV InSite] but those are topics out of the reach of the humanity and compassion of our politicians to tackle; their religious myopia compels them to chase after shadows, giving the appearance of doing something positive for the country.

Dropping the word sodomy into the debate is the red-rag to the bull of completely dispensing with any objectivity, but the truth is that many studies have noted the increase in anal sex amongst heterosexuals [NATAP] [Wikipedia].

As contraception or something else

With reason, where Female Genital Mutilation [WHO] is prevalent, there is a tendency for more heterosexual anal sex than virginal sex [LibChrist].

It then makes interesting debate if the light of the Vatican’s aversion to family planning through the use of contraception [Time] [IPSNews], sexually active but considerate partners indulge in contraceptive anal sex which just happens to be against our penal code.

It does make one conclude that the legislators are just wasting time on useless laws that are legislated in the hypocritical denial of facts that depict a clear national emergency in need of serious attention.

Ditch the hypocritical God talk

The problems in Nigeria today are definitely not as a result of the activities of a handful of practising perverts, too many voices call on God in Nigeria that he dare not blink – to blame moral decadence on those few rather than on the lasciviousness of the majority is hypocritical and dishonest.

Nigeria is not a homogenous religious community like the Old Testament Jews under the leadership of a pseudo-theocracy; we are a democracy in the 21^st Century of 140 million people, for crying out loud.

Get doing the work that matters

This bill would now be referred to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Justice and Women Affairs and I hope the human rights element of living in a global community gains ascendancy, that the sense of justice prevails over the idea of legislating on religious and supposedly moral issues and that they begin to concentrate on the plight of women by working to fully ratify the CEDAW protocol. [Blog-City]

If there is a need to ban same sex relationships, the argument has yet to be made objectively and not on moral and religious grounds – these matters should be able to stand the scrutiny of objective jurisprudence and legal challenge, the hysteria of mass prejudice to foment tyranny is not for democracies and that is what should be discouraged in Nigeria.