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Homosexuals Hatred is
a Fruit of an Alliance
source: Abujan post
17 April 2006- Uganda- Anglican bishops must be cursing their
rotten luck. Just when they thought they had gotten rid of the
"homosexual problem" in their midst by expelling their dissenting
colleague, retired Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a new spoiler is about
to break the virtual consensus of political and religious leaders in our
country on same-sex relationships.
Daily Monitor reported last
Thursday that the community of St. Sebastian, based in Spain's Canary
Islands, is extending its gay and lesbian-friendly ministry to Uganda.
Homosexuality, or the hatred of it,
is perhaps the only issue that Anglicans, Catholics, and other churches
in Uganda pursue with unanimous ecumenical zeal. So, anytime the winds
blow in some news of homosexual activities, almost to a man, the clergy
huff and puff in their ruffled frocks about morality and hell.
The politicians, many of whom
worship at the shrines of the homophobic clergy, usually channel the
same fire-and-brimstone creed in the enforcing and making of law in
Uganda.
Buturo spits fire
So, when news of the coming of the
church of St. Sebastian broke, Information and Broadcasting Minister
Nsaba Buturo, who apparently considers his position as the secular
equivalent of the Grand Inquisitor in the medieval church, immediately
belched some scary flames, threating to consume the newcomers.
Perhaps the enforcers of Christian
morality haven't been reading the news due to the Easter holidays. So,
they haven't yet made any noises about the St. Sebastian church's
intentions. But they can't be far behind Buturo.
I think there shouldn't be any
double-standards in the laws of the land and of religions regarding
sexual behavior whether these apply to heterosexuals, homosexuals, or
those who don't fall in those two categories.
Unfortunately, since 1998, the
state and several Christian denominations in Uganda have struck up an
unholy alliance to beat up on homosexuals, even as they cover up their
own abject failures.
Unholy alliance
This alliance is not an accident.
Ugandan law and the brand of Christianity that condemn homosexuality as
"carnal knowledge against the order of nature," or bestial are the
despotic bastards of European monarchism and of the sexual insecurities
of Abrahamic faiths.
Thus, this unholy alliance is also
an incestuous marriage of the totalitarian and patriarchal tenets and
tendencies that gave birth to white supremacist imperialism, which has
been ravaging the world ever since.
So, like the horsehair wigs that
Ugandan judges still wear, homophobia is one of those castaways of
British colonial law that Ugandan legislators cling to with apoplectic
zeal long after the originators of our penal code have moved on.
Last July, members of parliament
voted for a constitutional amendment that outlaws same-sex marriage by
an overwhelming majority of 111 against 17 with only three abstentions.
They also approved the constitutional amendment that has made Museveni a
monarch president.
Nkoyoyo, Ssempa the same
The anachronistic legal philosophy
at work here resonates with the absolutist pontifications of the clergy.
That's because vociferously anti-gay clergymen such as Archbishop
Mpalanyi Nkoyooyo and Pastor Martin Ssempa drink from the same poisoned
fountain that President Yoweri Museveni and the members of his cabinet
visit to slake their totalitarian thirst.
It is, therefore, not a coincidence
that the more conservative wing of Christianity in Uganda is also the
one that sees Museveni's continued stay in power, regardless of runaway
corruption and incompetence, as God's will.
Interestingly, Jesus taught his
followers to dispense with the odious prescriptions of Old Testament
laws in favor of the law of brotherly love. As a result, he clashed
often with the Pharisees, who insisted that those Old Testament laws and
their own heavy-handed interpretations should be followed literally.
Uganda's homophobic Christian and
political leaders are the spiritual heirs of the Pharisees. They have
invested more time and energy in pursuing their anti-gay crusade than in
fighting real crimes and vices, such as corruption, that are stunting
Uganda's economic and spiritual growth.
Since I am neither an ordained
minister nor a theologian, let me quote the words of Dr. John Sentamu,
the new archbishop of York, about this not-so-holy joust about
homosexuality.
Last year, Sentamu told the London
Guardian: "Some of our disagreements are not Christian really . . . It
seems to suggest that all the great evils of the world are being
perpetrated by gay and lesbian people, which I cannot believe to be the
case. What is wrong in the world is that people are sinful and alienate
themselves from God and you do not have to be gay to do that. To suggest
that to be gay equals evil, I find that quite unbelievable.
"Is somebody saying a gay and
lesbian can't live in Christ? What matters in the end to me is to do
what my mother said to me as a little child: John, never point a finger
at anybody because when you do three other fingers are pointing back at
you. All of us are sinners, all of us have baggage. Why should my
baggage as a heterosexual be more acceptable than the baggage of a gay
person?"
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