Uganda and Gay Debates in Africa

Several months ago, the African Trip by the most powerful President of the most powerful Nation on earth, as expected elicited both excitement and resentment in equal measure. Remember the Kenyan whining how ungrateful Obama is to not even go by his father’s village and shake the grandma’s hand? Oh, while in Tanzania there was the promise of the energy investment to light the African continent from the perennial darkness, not forgetting the many inconveniences that came with the visit including the jamming of the telephone networks. However, the most memorable was the following statement reported in some Kenyan Media and attributed to President Obama, “My basic view is that regardless of race, regardless of religion, regardless of gender, regardless of sexual orientation, when it comes to the law, people should be treated equally, (Daily Nation, July 28)” Mark the word regardless of sexual orientation. This may as well have been taken out of context and the emphasis may have been elsewhere. But these was seen by many and rightly so as a veiled attempt to push and arm-twist the African countries to legalize gay marriages. At the time the first and perhaps the most vocal voice was that of the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Kenya Cardinal John Njue and his advise to the good president “forget”. The recent development and the passing of the Antigay laws in Uganda have revived the same sex debate again. For most Africans whether Christians or non-Christians the debate on gay issues raises very varied reactions with those in support being in the minority or even never heard. You need to follow such debates on the social media and vitriol’s that come with it. Obviously, I am not going to voice their concerns in this platform. However, for me the call by President Obama, raises a very fundamental question to us as Africans. We can all rise up in arms and claim how African we are and how immoral this is, but as in many other issues when it comes to the West and standing up against Western influences we are poor students of history, remember the Anti-terrorism bill and subsequently Anti-terrorism Act? Cardinal John Njue may have called it as it is, but we really need to rise and stand for our African culture and what is morally right whether religious or otherwise. There are many other moral issues that Africa has fallen short and leaves a lot to be desired but Gay marriage and Gay unions is just not one of those that we need to accept just because it is a norm in the West. Obama’s father may have hailed from Kenya and as he has stated his opinion may have evolved over time, but we cannot let our guards down just for the sake of promised financial aid. However, our reasoning and stand against such issues should be informed by constructive debates and criticism as interrogated against the African cultures and not mere opposition for the sake of it, or holding the African mantra just because it has been advocated from the West. As a Christian, however, I have to be moved by love and compassion for the sickness of the human soul and the more need for human redemption. I have to fervently pray for these individuals whether they be my brothers or sisters, friends or neighbours or even my children. But my human weakness does not reduce me to an emotional walking robot, which has to do what is politically correct at the expense of my own faith and culture. I believe in a real faith and in a real God and that is what I have to teach and preach, despite my shortcomings in articulating or in living the same. For those who argue that you are either born Gay or heterosexual I leave to the psychologists and others to make the case; there are those who also argue that this is a common phenomenon even in the animal kingdom and that the animal in us may be the explanation of such inhuman tendencies. To these I say as much as I wish to agree with the evolution theory there is still a reason that a scorpion is still a scorpion even after all those centuries and not a small human being; until when an elephant will act and behave like a human being despite its assumed intelligence it still remains to be an elephant, there is no reason for a human being to behave like a spider. There are those of course, who will take every opportunity to remind me to live and let live, in other words I should be tolerant and respect other people’s lifestyle, but as the patriarch of the “Duck Dynasty” has shown even in the West there is no common voice on Gay issues. Respect for my friends and neigbours despite their sexual orientations does not mean running away from what since the beginning of human race has been held to be the law of nature and of course the will of God, the source of All things. For me those who embrace and practice homosexuality are sinners, and like all of us sinners they need love and prayers but also their inhuman tendencies that goes against the human nature, public decorum and African morals need to be condemned in the strongest terms possible, irrespective of whether they are advocated by the most powerful president on earth or any other western forces. If in future we turn and throw our morals through the window like we have done in many other instances, it will be of our own volition and not from push from the societies that wish to prescribed their norms on others. But as to what we do with those among us either in the beaches of Mombasa or the Nairobi city, Kampala or elsewhere who decide to prostitute themselves for monetary gains or other convictions is a debate we should keep having while at the same time reminding our children we are human beings to begin with.