By MAKAU MUTUA Posted Saturday, October 31 2009 at 16:43

The gay marriage in London two weeks ago between Mr Daniel
Chege and Mr Charles Ngengi has brought the vilest Kenyan
homophobes out of the closet. Homophobic hatred is so
viscerally irrational that it can only be explained by an
un-interrogated moral, cultural, and religious certitude.

One common – but completely false – argument is that it
is un-African to be gay. This is an absurdly vacuous claim
that is internally illogical and utterly ahistorical. Most
Kenyans are today indoctrinated by religious institutions,
cultural guardians, and the moral police to be anti-gay.
Rather than find someone to love, anti-gay crusaders find it
convenient to find someone innocent to hate. Why has such a
hatefully primitive and backward cosmology gone
unchallenged?

Let me illustrate the seriousness of the problem by giving
you a short human rights history of the last 50 years. Can
you imagine a credible defence today for apartheid or the
view that blacks are inferior to whites, and that the former
exist solely to serve the latter?

How would you like to be declared illegal – or unworthy
of existence – simply because you are black or African?
Would you agree that all women and girls in your life –
your mother, sister, wife, girlfriend, aunt, and grandmother
– are inferior beings because of their female gender?

Do you think it is a good idea to declare Muslims superior
to Christians? What about making the Akamba ineligible for
constitutional protections? That is the human rights story
in a nutshell. Modern democracy is not possible without two
key interrelated principles – equal protection and
anti-discrimination. Understand that it is “identity”
that is afforded equal protection by insulating it from
discrimination.

Historically, “identity” referred to your “state of
being” – colour, sex, ethnicity, race, religion,
language, marital status, national origin, political
opinion, disability, and wealth or other social status.

But today “identity” is understood to include sexual
orientation. That is why many countries explicitly prohibit
discrimination against gays in social, political, and
economic life. Others regard attacks on gays a hate crime.
Civilised countries recognise gay marriages.

I have heard it said that being gay is “un-African.”
Some Africans, who obviously know very little about the
continent, have charged that there were no gays in Africa!
The historical record, however, amply demonstrates that
there were – and continues to be – gay Africans.

In fact, it is homophobia that is not necessarily
home-grown. Much of the revulsion of homosexuality in Africa
can be traced to Christianity and Islam, the two religious
traditions that express homophobia in their doctrinal
teachings. Before the arrival of these faiths, Africans
appear to have been either agnostic about homosexuality or
to have treated sexual orientation as a non-event. This may
explain why there are no original gay epithets in African
languages.

It is logical nonsense to assert that being gay is
“un-African.” Does the assertion mean that it is not
genetically possible to be African and gay? This hateful
statement has as much basis in science as the assertion that
whites are superior to blacks! Nor is there any cultural
foundation for such an outrageous claim.

Culture is a dynamic phenomenon that it is neither static
nor frozen in time. It is not possible to pigeonhole a
biological impulse – such as sexual orientation – in a
cultural box. In fact, available evidence suggests that all
human societies – and Africa is no exception – have a
minority population that is gay.

In most societies, gays are driven into the closet by
social stigma and hate. Do you think there will be many gay
Kenyans clamouring to “come out” after the furore and
vitriol over Mr Ngengi’s marriage to Mr Chege? Isn’t it
shocking that a deeply “religious” and
“God-fearing’’ country like Kenya could be so hateful
of an innocent minority population?

We should remember Pastor Martin Niemoller, an
anti-communist who supported the rise of Adolf Hitler only
to be disillusioned when the Nazi chief insisted on the
supremacy of the state over religion. In a famous poem, the
good pastor lamented his failure to speak out when Nazis
came for the communists because he was not a communist.

He did not speak out when Nazis came for the socialists,
trade unionists, or Jews because he was none of those. His
silence over the persecution of others was his own undoing:
“Then they came for me – and there was no one left to
speak out for me.” We must remember that we deny others
their rights at our own peril. Gay Kenyans are being
persecuted today but I can guarantee you that it will be
another group tomorrow.

There is no evidence that gay Kenyans have been responsible
for the plunder of the country. Kenya has been brought down
to its knees by “macho” men and heterosexual women who
purport to love God and country. How can love between two
adults – of the same sex – be so terrifying to the
majority?

From: Tebiti Oisaboke
Subject: It’s Nonsense to assert that being gay is un-African
Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009, 9:40 PM

Prof. Mutua, after reading your article, I can not help but conclude that you were born in a wrong culture and ended up in a wrong professional
career all together. I totally disagree with your long
list of laundry views in many ways even though people say
that, everybody is entitled to their own views and
obligations. How can you dispute that being gay is not
anti-African? May I refresh your memory sit, that every
human denomination on this glob have their own cultural
rules and ethics which guide them in their own way of
lifestyle. E.g; it’s okay to feast on a beef steak in
Masakuu but an abomination in India. It’s okay to bury their
dead relatives in less than 24 hours according to the Muslim
culture but not in others- Where you currently live in
upstate NY, they even don’t bury their dead people in the
winter because the ground is cover with ice blocks. I find it
amusing because your article can’t hold any water at all. We
folks from motherland are born and engrained in our own cultural and traditional traits of which are normally passed down from one generation to
another. And if one doesn’t abide with these traits or rules
and ethics, s/he is bound to be condemned by our departed
souls. I strongly admonish you to read or reread Chinua
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart or Ngugi Wa-Thiongo’s writings to
familiarize yourself on African traditions and culture. In
Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo was expelled from his own village
and had to go live with members of his family in another
community after shooting and killing his wife in one of those communally declared “holly” days by the community’s supper powers. These were days when nobody was allowed to do anything that might contravene the holly ghosts rules and declarations. And his compound along with his food stores were touched in order to cleanse the village and appease the clan’s eminence super powers he had contravened. And when he came back, he had to
go through some traditional rituals in order to be cleanced
back to his own home people by the Holly ghosts.

That said, I find it unbelievable that you have
decided to abandon your own Kamba customs and adopt the
white man’s. The western folks don’t even have what they can
really call their own cultural custom. Even when they
shipped our brothers and sisters from motherland back in the
days, they instructed them to give up their African
traditions and forced them to assimilate theirs. They told
them that the African culture was old and outdated and could
not be incorporated in the western hemisphere. If they were
caught reading, they were condemned to the gallows. In other
words they were not supposed to know anything or continue
in their own cultural traditions from motherland. These
western folks don’t have any culture and that is why their
society is one of the most evil one on the this planet, to
say the truth. When I first landed here about a little bit
over two decades ago, my first impression was that, if God
was coming today, this is where he will
start to burn the disobedient folks on the day of
judgment even before he starts on motherland. To tell the
truth, the western hemisphere is like the twin cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah.Of cause we have our own share of evils
begetting the inhabitants from motherland that God doesn’t
approve of but ours can not be compared with those from
these areas. To be honest with you Prof. I didn’t know what
gays or lesbians were prior to me setting foot in the
western hemisphere. I didn’t know what a BJ or the 69 bed
style was either!!! All these are abominable traditions to
the Eastern block folks. Even these gays and lesbians are
not profoundly well and openly integrated by their own
communities. There is not yet any documented legal law
which abides the union between same sex individuals. If
there was one, then these people could be marrying one of
their lovers anytime and whenever they feel like. If it’s
not an openly affair in the western hemisphere, what makes
you think that this BS is alright to take place in
motherland? Your argument seems to imply that it’s also okay
to have sex with animals e.g goats, cows, monkeys, chicken
or chimps etc. The western folks go to bed with dogs but
this is a no-no to the motherland inhabitants. And if that
is not enough, a married man may invite another man to have
sex with his other half as he watches in order to get stimulated.
Stuff like these should never even be mentioned let
alone talked about at the diner table in motherland sir. Just
leave it where it belongs. It’s not importable to motherland
and it will be centuries before folks there engage in such kind
of nasty business if it ever happens.. I will be glad if you do that for me. A friend of mine went home with plaited hair one time, and his
mother asked him: are you the woman in this homestead
married to your dad or it’s me? She gave him an ultimatum to
shave it or leave the home. The chap had no alternative but
to abide with his mom’s
request. If this simple hair dress hasn’t yet been
accepted with an exception of the dreaded Mungiki dread-heads, what do you think about the gay and lesbian business? I hope next time you will focus more on what kind of ordience you are writing to. Good luck and be blessed.

TOI
CLT-NC

It is nonsense to assert that being gay is un-African

Submitted by Jossseph
Posted November 01, 2009 08:59 PM

People who claim that being gay is unAfrican are just
ignorant people. They are the same type that used to say
educating girls will turn them into prostitutes. First of
all, why does two same sex people people loving one another
bother them so much? Could it be that they feel bad because
they are secretly miserable? Really, let them tell us why
they are so bothered by this. If not then we can conclude
that they are the ones with issues.

Submitted by sunvieweagle
Posted November 01, 2009 08:56 PM

Prof, I have read many of your articles and applunded most
of them…but please spare me this abomination. You are
infected as in a disease in terms of becoming more amenable
to things western…just stay there dont infect us through
your writings…am sure there are genuine human rights
issues you can write abt, dont you think so?

Submitted by flexy832003
Posted November 01, 2009 08:43 PM

Drama!Eti gay is un-african?!what is African?I think its
time we went to graze the cows and goats so that we stay
true to AFRICA!Oh do u think that the state is willing to
spend 40 million to count Kenyan gay “ghosts”?Ama Nascop are
crazy?Focus! there are Kenyan gays ignoring this fact
doesn’t stop gays from being a major HIV prevalence driver!
your husbands buddy might just be one of the gays!do u want
to know if ur husband is gay ?