Since the High Court ruled that the government cannot
block the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community from forming
an organisation, the contraversial debate of how far Kenya should tolerate gay
people have been raging on.
While the three-judge bench acknowledged that the Penal
Code criminalises “gay and lesbian liasons”, they added that “popular morality
should not be the basis for limiting rights in Kenya”.
The recent US Supreme Court ruling that gay marriages be
legalised in that country and Barack Obama, who openly supports same sex
unions, bound to visit Kenya soon the debate is bound to get more heated in
days to come.
Granted that every Kenyan’s right is guranteed by the
Constitution, the enjoyment of those rights should be in a manner that does not
infringe in the rights of others. This, perhaps, explains why although
prostitutes have a right to earn a living as Kenyan citizens, whatever they do
is construed to be injurious to our moral fabric hence its criminalisation.
But this is the opposite in liberal Europe for instance
where prostitution is legal in eight countries. Therefore it is hypocritical, belittling and neo-colonial
for Western countries to pressurise and threaten Africa, including Kenya, to
either embrace LGBTs or face the music.
In 2011 British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened
to cut his country’s aid to African nation’s whose governments were sponsoring
anti-gay laws like Uganda, which had then passed a tough anti-gay law that
called for capital punishment, and Ghana.
President Barack Obama, who have been a strong opponent
of gay marriages until May 2012, provoked a rebuke from African leaders while
visiting Senegal when he tried to urge African leaders to leaglise gay
marriages.
Some people have quoted questionable “research” to
justisfy that gayism is genetic while its an open secret that just like
prostitution, drinking and smoking its an acquired social behaviour.
With allegations flying around social media that the US
Secretary of State John Kerry refused to shake Deputy President William Ruto’s
hand during his visit to Kenya because of the latter’s statement that gays have
no place in Kenya, there is all likelihood that Kerry’s boss might make advocating
for LGBTs’ rights one of his key agendas when he visits Kenya in next month.
As President Macky Sall of Senegal told Obama, African
culture is wired against “strange” sexual orientations like homosexuality.
Therefore trying to force this down our throats through intimidation and
sponsored activism will only continue enriching lobbyists and wasting energy
and resources that would otherwise be used in other more urgent causes like
development.
Even among the most liberal Western societies where
gayism is decriminalised “coming out” to reveal one’s orientation as a
homosexual is always treated with a lot of hullabaloo because most practise it
in hiding.
Examples of prominent personalities who stunned the whole
world, including their fellow liberal countrymen, when they came out include
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, Apple CEO Tim Cook, actor Wentworth Miller, and pop
stars Elton John, Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga.
The very limited number of LGBTs elected in positions of
leadership even in countries where they are legalised is an indicator that,
indeed, this is not a “normal” behaviour as its ardent proponents would like us
to believe. In France, the law prohibits
gay men from donating blood and a recent European Union Court of Justice (ECJ)
ruling seemed to support this stand.
Legalising or giving LGBTs more space in Kenya will, most
likely, make this unconventional behaviour look cool among impressionable
teenagers and youth, hence tempting them to adopt it to “blend in”.
Therefore to ensure we shield our future generations from
pervasive and addictive socialisation like prostitution, drug abuse,
consumption of illicit liquor and homosexuality we must put in place the right legal and moral
barriers to curb their proliferation.
