| Professor Wole Soyinka has hit the nail on the head with his wonted keen intellect. I remember there is a piece I wrote on this subject when the matter was in hot debate as the Senate passed the anti-same sex marriage bill. Even my own little piece then generated condemnatory text messages across length and breath of Nigeria with people calling me unsavoury names. I reproduced the said article below. Same sex bill: Why the Senate is wrong!
(Strictly my personal opinion)
KAYODE KETEFE
The Nigerian Senate is still basking in the euphoria of plaudits being poured on it from all directions since it passed the Same Sex (Prohibition) Bill on November 29, 2011. The now famous bill has among other things, prescribed 14 years imprisonment term for anyone who engages in homosexuality and other practices within the entire gamut of eccentric sexual behaviours covered by the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) terminologies. The same act imposes ten years imprisonment on anyone who supports aids and abets the said practices. Our entire society, save an infinitesimally small segment, agrees with the Senate on this, on the grounds that our society must be protected against the moral debasement of the Western world and all its disgusting sexual perversions. This writer, even at the risk of being misunderstood, absolutely disagrees with the Senate and sees the decision as nothing more than a "statutory terrorism" against a misunderstood minority. He holds that until there is conclusive evidence based on credible empirical investigation that unequivocally proves that homosexuality and allied practices are perversions rather than genetically-induced biological propensities, it would be most unfair for the whole society to conspire against this minority among us through an ill-informed statute. There is still a great debate throughout the civilized and advanced countries on the nature of gayism, lesbianism, intersex and allied eccentric sexual lifestyles outside the borders of normal heterosexuality. Researches upon researches have been conducted on this arcane phenomenon with some establishing the inexorableness of mutant variation of sexual preferences among any human population. Other results have not produced any conclusive evidence as to what constitutes the determining factor of the recondite behaviorisms. But for the Africans, from Uganda to Ghana and Nigeria, researches are just mere waste of time! Our all-knowing Senators seem to have instinctively discerned the correct position without the profligacy of researches; homosexuality is inexcusably immoral, alien to our culture, disgustingly sinful, and must be banned. While this conclusion may be right or wrong, one would have felt more comfortable if the conclusions were reached within the framework of insights furnished by empirical researches, and not just through homophobic fury. The 21st century is not an era when far-reaching decisions should be taken on mere impulses. The Senate should have commissioned the Nigerian Medical Association to conduct an empirical inquiry into the nature of the controversial phenomenon and then reinforce the acquired knowledge with the inputs from the Nigerian Psychology Association before reaching its conclusions. For instance, the American Psychiatry Association used to categorise homosexuality as a form of "mental disorder" till 1980 when it changed this labeling as a result of more illumination on the subject. That is an example of a culture that has refused to take an unyielding, all-time stance, unlike our own omniscient senators. Furthermore, since LGBT practices are not yet a palpable problem in Nigeria, perhaps the best attitude would have been for the Senate to ignore it altogether and devote itself to issue of greater priorities that underpin the realities of our own world. The position that LGBT practices can spread if not contained by legislation is analogous to saying incidence of babies born with deformities will soar if the society ceases to discriminate against deformed people! It appears more probable than not that this gay people do not just choose to be like that. After all, how many of us so-called "straight people" choose to be like this? I have been attracted to beautiful ladies since my adolescence, but there never was a time in the course of my biological/psychological development that I deliberately chose to be like that. Now if I did not choose my own preference, I don't think it would be proper to assume those other people choose theirs. The problem is that the moment the issue of gay is mentioned people are simply outraged and would be unprepared to entertain any intellectual arguments on the subject. This is not surprising; exhibition of deviation from "normalcy" has always been visited with serious repercussion by the society on the deviants. There was a time when albinos were persecuted for being "evil" because of their skin colour. Today, we know that albinism occurred when a mutant gene causes the absence of a substance called "melanin" in the skin pigmentation of the albinos. There was a time when twins were killed for being abnormal and satanic; we know from Nigerian history that it was a Scottish missionary, Mary Slessor, who stopped the practice of killing of twins in the city of Calabar, Nigeria's former capital. When growing up, this writer had witnessed scenes when people born with both male and female genitals (hermaphrodites) were stripped naked and stoned to death for being witches or wizards. There was a time when children born with deformities were thrown into the "Evil Forest" for being possessed with evil spirits. All these are documented facts, and are enough to make every reasonable person pause to critically reflect before saying anything is evil or immoral on the solitary ground of deviation from normalcy. THE END
--- On Wed, 12/26/12, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:
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