Sunday, November 8, 2009

The Bahati Bill's Unintended Consequences

Ever wondered why the intimacy with your spouse feels strained, perfunctory, mechanical?

Well, if your husband is totally straight, that might suggest that he is no longer into you and has found another woman. But there is another more sobering reality that you might do well to think about; your husband may be a gay man whose blood only boils naturally when he is with another man.





Sounds ridiculous? It really shouldn't because the safest protection of any gay man seeking social respect is within a straight marriage. As this Times article clearly illustrates, many gay men don't want to be so because it is such a difficult life loving another man. The social opprobrium that comes with it pushes totally gay men into often loveless marriages - just to fit into what society expects. The toll on the men and women in such marriages is best left to the Lord to disnteangle, but there is no doubt that it is harrowing at best.

There is nothing like sleeping with a woman when your entire mind is pining to be with a man. But we know that many men fall into this category and have gotten married to try and "marry away" their homosexuality. If you are a woman, pray that you don't fall for such a man because it surely will end in tears of frustration and despair. And Bahati's anti-gay bill is about to drive even more gay Ugandan men into loveless, passionless, empty marriages.

You see, talk about how homosexuality is un-African is just that; talk. But there are thousands of women married to gay men in Uganda and such talk is scant comfort when they are living the trauma of marriage to a man who doesn't love them, and instead would prefer to be with a fellow man. Such women deserve to be with men who love and like women. Yet, the Bahati bill is about to condemn even more women to the pain and suffering that follows accompanies being married to a man who doesn't want you as surely as night follows day.

The Right Honorable Bahati and his friends don't know the half of it of course. How could they?

AfroGay cannot name names but you just have to scratch the surface of many a loveless marriage and you will find that if it is not another woman, it is another man responsible for the strain or lack of interest. Bahati is about to force even more gay men into getting married in order not to end up in jail or in front of a firing squad because of their sexuality.

Take it from one who not only knows, but one who has lived the experience; if you think this bill is about homosexuals alone, you haven't really studied the society you live in well enough. This bill is about to ruin many, many lives. Women and children are about to become unsuspecting victims of the Bahati bill in numbers that were dwindling as gay men accepted who they were and looked for likeminded men. All these are about to be forced back into the closet and/or into staid, passionless marriages.

The solution of course is simple enough - let homosexuals love who they wish and sleep with whoever will sleep with them in the privacy of their homes. Ask any woman what she prefers and she will tell you that she would rather deal with a straight man than have to struggle with a man who cannot get it up for her because his mind is dreaming of another man. There are no tricks a woman can pull with a man who is gay. Gay men belong with gay men and that is all there is to it. But Bahati of course will not know what we are talking about because he is a legistlator who likely doesn't understand that homosexuals cannot be cured since that is who they are.

And if the Bahati bill is passed, prepare for an avalanche of men who arrive late for their nuptials, who disappear for days on end without explanation, who perform sexually only now and then and with no emotion. In other words, prepare for many, many miserable wives crying for a husband when they have a man right there in their home.

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill: Jail Gays, Don't Hang Them

The religious clerics of Uganda have pronounced themselves on the anti-gay bill. And their learned contribution? Jail all homosexuals and throw away the key!

Money quote:

“If you kill the people, to whom will the message go? We need to have imprisonment for life if the person is still alive,” said Rev. Canon Aaron Mwesigye, the provincial secretary of the Church of Uganda.


I suppose one is meant to look at this as progress of sorts and Ugandan homosexuals should thank the clerics for this timely intervention. Rather than lose your life for being who you are, you would rather rot in jail.Death by a thousand pricks. (I know ... it is death by a thousand cuts but surely an interesting pun, huh?) is better than a quick death, yes?

Unfortunately, no one seems to have asked the Rev. Canon whether he would wish the same fate for his own child. But this is about something that doesn't concern these prelates, or is it?

There is another curious reference further down in the same article:

Parliament yesterday begun public debates on the Bill, conducted by the committee on presidential affairs


What, my curiosity aroused (pun unintended), has homosexuality got to do with presidential affairs? I am still scratching my head as I write this.

Finally, in a related report from another Ugandan news publication, there is this breathtaking economy with the truth:

Seventh Day Adventist’s John Kakembo noted that homosexuality has been in Uganda since the 1960s. He called on Parliament to quickly enact the Bill into law, so as to curb the vice.

"Homosexuality has been in Uganda since the 1960s?!!"

This man's name suggests that he is a Christian. Has he ever heard of Kabaka Mwanga and the real reason he sent those pretty pages, the Uganda Martyrs, to their deaths in the 1880s? Is it possible that John Kakembo doesn't know what Martin Ssempa knows all too well, namely that the boys were killed in part because they rebelled against Mwanga's homosexual demands?

Psst!


Related Reading:

1. No death penalty for homosexuals – clergy men

2. Out of the Closet - Unveiling Sexuality Discourses in Uganda

3. Why Anti-Gay Bill Should Worry Us

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

"I Have Always Known That I Need To Think For Myself"

If I had believed everything that was said about homosexuality by the Church over the years, I might be saying that I was going to burn in Hell for a long time. To be honest, I couldn’t find the rationale for that so it didn’t affect me.”


Dónal Óg Cusack, the Irish hurling professional who recently came out as gay in his book deserves a gold medal. No, he deserves a plaque on the front pew of his Catholic Church for articulating what many of us fail so badly to do.

And in simple terms, Cusack puts in perspective the main thorn that gnaws away at many a gay man struggling to come to terms with his sexuality - namely that homosexuality is wrong, anti-Bible, sinful etc.

Money quote:

“I went out with nice women and good women, but sure, I still knew. I wanted something else. I get more out of men. I just do. Always have. I know I am different, but just in this way. Whatever you may feel about me or who I am, I’ve always been at peace with it.” ... “I can remember as a young lad that we would all be sitting on our knees saying decades of the rosary every night, because that’s the family I came from. Thankfully the one thing I would have always known is that I needed to think for myself. That helped me to deal with my own situation. “If I had believed everything that was said about homosexuality by the Church over the years, I might be saying that I was going to burn in Hell for a long time. To be honest, I couldn’t find the rationale for that so it didn’t affect me.”


And that, in a nutshell, is what all gay boys and girls struggling with their emotions have to learn to understand; there is absolutely no rationale as to why being gay is a sin, no rationale as to why having consensual sexual relations with an adult is evil or depraved, no rationale as to why the Bible says that it is wrong to engage in homosexual sex and then in the same breath say that keeping slaves is alright. Most importantly, Cusack shows us that as human beings, we have to use the one faculty that God has given us, a faculty that makes us superior to all other creatures on earth - the ability to think for ourselves.

In that spirit, we need to rise above the parroted vituperation and ask ourselves (and our tormentors) the simple question: why is being gay wrong? If God made us all in his image (Genesis 1:27), why do we have to be straight to be blessed?

And that is precisely what Martin Ssempa, Luke Orombi, Peter Akinola, Steven Langa don't want anyone to do - ask questions, think. To think is to question conventional Biblical straight-jacket orthodoxy (a sin is a sin is a sin). To think is to appeal to the fundamental attribute that sets us apart from wild animals; our conscience.

Thus, Ssempa and his acolytes are desperate to ensure that Ugandans don't think. And the reason for that is obvious; whenever human beings anywhere in the world have been allowed the latitude to think, they have veered decisively away from their primordial instincts and on to the side of compassion, inclusion and tolerance.

Ugandans minding their own business where homosexuality is concerned? Imagine what that would do to Martin Ssempa's livelihood! The poor little man cannot afford to have Ugandans think thus the desperation you see him relentlessly engaged in.
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Friday, October 23, 2009

Gay Slur Hounds Magic Johnson & Isaiah Thomas

Question: What does it take to turn Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson into hissy bitches?


On one side is Magic Johnson, he of the Los Angeles Lakers fame. I don't know if you remember him, or have ever heard of him, but he used to be very, very big - literally and figuratively - in United States basketball, so big in fact that to speak of Magic Johnson even today is to speak of hallowed existence. On the other is Isaiah Thomas. You likely have never heard of him unless you are a crazed basketball fan, American or both. But don't worry if you don't know either guy; it is what they represent that matters to this story.

Magic and Isaiah are squabbling like ferrets in a sack over, wait for it, homosexual sex! Their relationship was rent asunder in 1992 and, seventeen years later, Magic Johnson has reopened the wounds with a book in which he excoriates his former bosom friend, IsaiahThomas, because it was claimed that he spread rumors that Magic had caught HIV through gay sex! Allow me to summarize the origin of the squabble:

In 1992, Magic Johnson stunned the entire United States of America and the world when he announced that he was HIV positive. He, however, took care to explain that he had compromised HIV by sleeping with more than 100 (or is it 1000?) women. So far, so simple and so macho; big, straight, mega-popular spots icon slings his tail at every skirt that will have him and contracts HIV.

The public reaction was mostly sympathetic and Johnson got extra kudos for being brave enough to come out with his condition at a time when HIV was still considered a gay disease and a death sentence. But, apparently, the story didn't end there. Magic Johnson heard it on the grapevine that Thomas was spreading rumors that it was homosexual sex and not excessive macho heterosexuality that had caused the HIV.


The story gets interesting with what Magic says he did about the rumors. He talked to Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird and other basketball stars of the time into ganging up against Thomas. Together, they schemed to keep Thomas off the 1992 American Olympics team. At the time, Michael Jordan denied the rumors of his involvement in the sidelining of Thomas, but Johnson has now revealed that there was indeed a plot to keep Thomas from the 1992 US Olympic team. And Thomas' feelings are hurt all over again.

But this is still not about the two men. Such is the ugliness of the "gay" word in male sports that grown men like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird were persuaded to turn into catty conspirators to punish the insult to the honor of their friend. How could he level a sodomy slur against Magic, a woman's man if ever there was one? The daggers were sharpened, delivered Brutus-style into Thomas' side and there they have remained for 17 years.

The gay slur clearly still rankles Magic Johnson today which is why he has decided to rekindle the grudge of old by twisting the knives he and his accomplices left buried in Isaiah Thomas' belonging. And the slight is working because Thomas is in the news talking frankly about how hurt his feelings are. Seventeen years on, Johnson is still being eaten up by what he feels Thomas said about him, but he claims that he nonetheless played a part in Thomas being hired as a New York Knicks coach (something Thomas contradicts). And all this cattiness because of what? A 'gay sex' rumor that Thomas has steadfastly denied.

Just when you thought that strides had been made in bringing homosexuality to the light in America, your complacency is jolted with these revelations. Calling someone gay ... no, just saying that someone has had gay sex, is still about the worst insult you can level at a black man of Magic Johnson's stature and sports prowess even in 2009! Magic Johnson still bristles at that slur and he is still reveling in having ensured that Isaiah Thomas paid by watching the 1992 Olympics basketball competition on television. That Thomas has consistently denied spreading the gay sex rumors is obviously inconsequential; Magic Johnson's pride was hurt and Thomas has been paying for that for seventeen years!

And someone out there really thinks that homosexuality is a choice? Who would choose to belong to a group to which mere suspicion that one belongs, reduces seemingly level-headed men like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan to conniving, catty conspirators a la the The Real Housewives of Atlanta?

Related Reading:

1. Magic Defends His Anti-Isiah Comments

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Martin Ssempa and Michael Kyazze In the Dock














Poor Martin Ssempa (below) and Kyazze (above, with wife)






Martin Ssempa and his partner in vindictiveness, Michael Kyazze are in the dock.

The Director of Public Prosecutions in Uganda has concluded that they fabricated evidence against Pastor Kayanja in what amounted to a criminal conspiracy. If the law follows its course, the vociferous , judgmental, loonies could be defending themselves in front of a magistrate ... way before the anti-gay legislation they want to come to pass is signed into Ugandan law. In other words, they could go down before we do! Ha, Ha, Ha!

Now we know why these two vindictive loudmouths went to Parliament a couple of days before the damning announcement; they were trying to change the subject by pretending to lobby Parliament against homosexuals.

Sorry Ssempa and Kyazze dears! You have your own pooh, pooh to clean up. You want AfroGay to be branded a criminal simply for being who he is; you are accused CRIMINALS because of what you have done, and that is actually the real definition of a crime - something actionable that harms another. How is that for the shoe being on the other foot? Hooh, hooh! Hee, hee!

Obviously, one should not be cock-a-hoop in the misfortunes of others but who can blame AfroGay for throwing caution to the wind and enjoying this particular moment? Ephemeral though it is likely to be, one can't help but revel in the discomfort that must be going on in our enemies' camp. And to think that they are in the legal crossfires because of mistakes they have made all by themselves.

Lesson to anyone out there who thinks that your heterosexuality automatically gives you carte blanche to lord it over me because I am gay? Think again. The Lord works in mysterious ways as poor Ssempa is beginning to realize - to his cost.
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Kenyan Gay Couple "Marry" in London

At last some good cheer in the midst of the toxicity that is coming out of Uganda's Parliament at the moment. Charles Ngengi entered into a civil partnership [in Britain, they are not called marriages, but civil partnerships] with his longtime partner Daniel Chege Gichia. Both men hail from Kenya.


Money Quote:


Kenya's Daily Nation understandably reacted in a Neanderthal manner (for instance referring to one of the partner's previous relationship as "their intimate bizarre relationship") but Afrogay feels that this is one piece of good news that we all can relish at a time when the Parliament of Uganda is engaged in enacting Gestapo legislation against Uganda's gay population. And to see the Kenyan's wedding story so prominently on the pages of an African newspaper is nothing if not a coup detat for the Kenyan gay community in particular and the African one in general. Remember, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. This story needs to be circulated far and wide.


While you are it, also check out this beautiful and inspiring story of the first openly gay elite sportsman in Europe.

I feel a song coming on ...

We are marching, we’re gonna take this land
We are marching, we’re gonna take our stand
By the power of His Spirit
We are conquerors in his hands

Someone please find the music and send it to me. I can only read kiddie do-re-mi notations, so none of those tadpole-like staff notations for my excited head. While I wait, I can always hum Gloria Gaynor's [La Cage aux Folles's] gay anthem:

I am what I am
I am my own special creation
So come take a look
Give me the hook
Or the ovation
It's my world
That I want to have a little pride in
My world
And it's not a place I have to hide in
Life's not worth a damn
Till I can say
I am what I am

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Monday, October 19, 2009

Homosexuality and Homo-pedophilia ARE NOT the same thing! Please.

Uganda's press and police stoke anti-gay paranoia

Talk about being in the dog's house.

The dreadful headlines seem endless, and there is no use pretending that now is a great time to be gay in Uganda.

Here is another report suggesting that the police have taken the anti-sodomy campaign to schools. AfroGay knows a thing or two about consensual homosexual activity in schools, having been a willing participant as a young man. He would support anything to save children from being victimized by sexual predators in school, but of course as tends to be the case, most predatory homosexual activity happens outside of the confines of schools. More to the point, most homosexual activity in schools is between people of the same age-group and cannot, therefore, be put in the same category as predatory homo-sodomy that victimises children.

Money quote from misleading The Observer article:


The problem is that the alleged crime did not happen in school as the story suggests. The alleged pedophile just happened to be a teacher, but it could very well have been anyone else living in the neighborhood. Indulging in sex with a minor is already a crime under the laws of Uganda because it is pedophilia.

So what campaign exactly is the police taking to schools? A campaign to warn teachers against defiling minors or against waylaying children outside of school hours? Might it perhaps be a campaign to teach children how to prevent being defiled by older men? Both would be most laudable campaigns, of course, but what have they to do with homosexuality?


And where exactly is the evidence that to defile young boys and to be homosexual are one and the same thing as The Observer article suggests? Is it me or do others notice the pernicious campaign by the press and police in these Third World backwaters to stir up paranoia by creating the [totally wrong] impression in the minds of their audience that homosexuality and homo-pedophilia are one and the same thing?

What is to be done about these drip-drip reports that are so damaging and totally misleading?
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