Wednesday 8 February 2012

The Gay Debate: Simply Different Strokes for Different Folks!


KTN has been airing a series titled "The Muffled Killer" an expose on the world of male prostitution in Kenya and an insight into the men having sex with men (MSM) society.  It has caused a real uproar in Kenya.  Here is a link to a clip, a part one, you can follow the trail if you want to see more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDJkd7J3SBU.

Today society has a unique situation.  The world view is increasingly that the individual knows what is best for himself and his pursuit of happiness is supreme.  Human Rights now includes allowing this process to proceed unfettered, the qualification being "It does not hurt anyone else"

The extent of the hurt, is quite relative, since is it physiological, emotional, financial, where does it start, where does it end?

Many of the issues today being pushed as Human Rights are actually not human rights.  Human rights include those inalienable rights given to all of us, by God.  They are necessary for life and health and well being.  However, human rights have morphed to include even that which is not necessary for life, but is deemed crucial for living.  That is how Education, Culture, Religion come into the human rights stratosphere.  Once those became accepted, the realm was expanded further.  Pursuit of happiness, accumulation of wealth, self expression, protection of an individuals ideas and intellectual property, these too entered the realm of human rights.  Man has an inbuilt need to subdue, conquer and have dominion.  If you have a fight and win it, you start spoiling for the next one.  If you do not win, you still don't give up, until you have won.

Back to the issue at hand.  This whole "Gay Debate" stems from another primal desire:  It is the desire for acceptance that is at the core of every human being.  You see it when a child takes two steps then waits for you to cheer that they have done well.  It is a scientist waiting to be feted as an acknowledgement of years of hard work in a lab peering down microscopes.  Well, today we want to follow every rabbit trail thought in our heads and do whatever we put our minds to.  But that is not enough, we also want for others to look on our progress and hail it as admirable or at least, acceptable.  If they fail to do this, we feel "excluded" or "discriminated against", less than the rest of society.  Finally it boils down to this; is exclusion on the basis of behavioural differences really discrimination?  Or is it simply differences in taste, Different Strokes for Different Folks.

Let me give you a visual example.  To put it crudely, if you are at a table with a date who chews his food loudly and open mouthed.  Or you are sitting across a lovely lady at a high priced restaurant, and she sucks and slurps up her soup noisily and messily.  Some of you will have no problem with that, after-all, you may be a loud and open mouth chewer as well.  However, some of you will cringe at the very thought.  Whether there will be a second date, will depend on how you respond to this situation.  Are you a bad person because you are a loud, messy eater?  No.  Are you a bad person because the thought of "see food" in someone's else's "food processor" brings up everything you swallowed in the last 24hours?  No.  The solution in this instance is to find a date who will generally not leave you uncomfortable with how they chew their food.

Same scenario with social issues.  LGBT individuals express their sexuality in a way that is not usual for some of us.  I daresay if the only way to experience sexuality was in the manner in which LGBT people express it, some of us would choose to do without sex altogether and remain voluntarily celibate.  Simply because, it does not ring our bell, it is not our cup of tea.  In the same vein, the notion of rejecting the practise, cannot be held synonymous with rejecting the person.  I am personally a very affectionate individual, I make friends easily, laugh loudly and strike up conversations with perfect strangers several times a day.  I do not consider myself a homophobic individual, because even if you came out to me that you were a gay person, I probably would have an AC/DC joke about it.  However, I find the practise, very much not to my taste, and would not hesitate in pointing that out.  I would love to share all of life's experiences with a gay person, except sexual experiences.  That is one little English word, "Preference".

Now this is where the whole cookie crumbles.  The fact that I reject the practise and refuse to acknowledge it as a norm, makes those who live the lifestyle feel the rejection of the practise as being the rejection of them.  Separating the practise from the individual then becomes impossible, since offence has been taken by both sides.  I think this is where we all lost the plot.  The the pro-gay and anti-gay  movements, this is where the rubber meets the road.  Time has come for us to accept that we must agree to disagree.

Homosexuals should practise what they preach, be inclusive of the dissenting voices and leave this debate alone.  I say this because I have been subjected to seriously harsh judgements for expressing my opinion, to which I am as entitled as the people who believe I am wrong.  In Kenya today, I am in the majority with my opinion of same sex relations.  However, I am sure one day there will come a generation that will not mind so much, but this is not that generation.

Let me spin this top a little more.  Same sex marriages, that is a contradiction in terms.  How do you have the same sex and then you have a marriage?  Marriage is an institution, not a frame of mind.  It was established since the foundations of society, as between a man and a woman.  With the main aim not being companionship, but procreation.  Other same sex relations did exist, but not as marriage, but as just that, external adventures.  Many homosexuals in african society still maintain a home with a wife and children, and the homosexual relationship was recreational.   Women have sexual relations with other women but still have a Home.  There are women who even marry younger fertile women to have children for them.  A complex form of surrogacy, since the surrogate must source her own sperm donor sometimes but the children are considered the 'husband's'.  But I digress.  Even if you consider yourself monogamous in a homosexual relationship, what you have is not a marriage. It is loving companionship, it is deeply satisfying, but since procreation is impossible it is not a marriage.  Technology helps overcome this deficiency but left on its own, it is impossible to sort itself out.  Evolution notwithstanding.  If what people need is same tax benefits as married people, then clearly what we need to change is the tax laws, not the marriage laws.

My thinking leads me to think thus.  Time has come for us to grow up and get honest.  If you choose to live your life a certain way and I do not really like it, I should let you live your life uninhibited.  However, you also must stop expecting me to eventually come round and embrace it, it probably will never happen.  The old adage is actually true, "Live and Let Live".  All the labels we give each other create invisible walls that make it difficult for us to move forward.  Sometimes, the trick is in realising, that being immiscible is not a bad thing, in fact it may very well be the spice of life.

11 comments:

  1. This debate needs such an open minded post. Unfortunately, we are really lacking people who can discuss this issue without getting emotional and invoking religious beliefs......

    Nice post nevertheless.

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  2. Joy's musings on the gay debate don't find much favour with me.

    While she tries not to be openly hostile and intolerant vis a vis the LGBT community, some of her words as well as her laissez-faire approach to the matter perpetuates several harmful and hurtful stereotypes about gays and lesbians in particular.

    The first of these stereotypes is that LGBT relationships are exclusively sexual, clandestine even immoral with none of the family-orientated characteristics of marriages - consortium, companionship, love, affection, support.

    The second stereotype is that LGBT relationships do not qualify as family life because they are incapable of procreating. This is demeaning not only to homosexual couples but also to heterosexual couples who, for whatever reason, do not have children.

    The letter and spirit of the Constitution is clear that all persons including LGBT are equal before the law and therefore they should be able to benefit from all legislation.

    With the litigious culture that is already taking root in Kenya, it wont be long before a constitutional challenge to article 45(2) is taken to court because the term "opposite sex" is ambiguous but more fundamentally, this provision is in direct conflict with article 27(4) of the same Constitution which lists "sex" as a ground for discrimination.

    On a lighter note, it is hoped our embattled Deputy Chief Justice Nancy Baraza's PhD thesis will shed some academic and juridical light on some of these complex issues of homosexuality and the law.

    At any rate, this debate is far from over. Time will tell.

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  3. Take me back to the days of old... when gay simply meant happy..... I agree, room for dissenting opinion must be created. My pastor says this 'if you were born-gay, then you can be born-again'
    Excellent piece.

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  4. This thread actually makes my point. It is true gay people live and work among us. Some are our best friends even. However, the mere fact that they are gay does not give us license to hate them or dissasociate from them. Why, because they are after all human beings. However, being accepting of a gay person is very different from being accepting of homosexuality. THAT is the distinction I was trying to be.

    Let us be in relationship, but do not expect me to condone the practise unless I really want to. If I refuse to condone the practise, the person should let me be with my view, I am entitled to it. Calling me Homophobic or Retrogressive insults and aggrevates me. This is what is actually hurting the "gay cause". They push and push and we are not ceding ground. The result, rewind to Tuesday in Uganda's Parliament when Hon. Bahati stood up with his Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Holding Ground is a good example. Bryan is a good Muslim man, Joy is a good Christian woman. Our religious views are divergent. However, on that point we are content to be divergent, and where our views are convergent, we relate. I take no offense to the fact that he does not believe what I do, neither does he. That is how we should relate with members of the LGBT community. We must agree to disagree, and build harmony rather than acrimony.

    If you let society evolve yenyewe polepole, you end up having an acceptance that is ingrown, not imposed. There was a time women could not walk in trousers. Now, we think nothing of it in most places. There was a time men could never go to labour ward for the birth of their children, they waited by the phone in the pub for "its a baby boy!" My husband was present in the birth of both of our children. The point is, let the change happen naturally, forcing the point will give rise to a hard line stance. The rhetoric helps no one.

    IP when I was referrencing marriage as an an institution for the propagation of humanity, I meant it literally. Marriage was initiated for us to be fruitful and to multiply. Children are a gift and the fruit of the consumation of marriage. ALL women of reproductive age who choose to be sexually active, will have some form of birthcontrol. Unless ofcourse, (a) They are desirous of having children; or (b) They know they are incapable of having children; or (c) They are in a homosexual relationship. Marriages where children are not born naturally, find themselves in a heart breaking situation. That is why they do all they can to get children. However, when people engage in homosexual relations, there is NO EXPECTATION ever of children, because it is impossible, non-viable completely. Are there homosexual couples that "have" children, yes, but they too need to look for the opposite number to make this possible, or adopt other peoples children as their own.

    But as you pointed out, time will tell. In the meantime, can this debate take on a more cordial tone....for the greater good for society and the gay community in our midst.

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  5. I am all for different preferences. I prefer cabbage not sukuma wiki. But the thing about the homosexual/heterosexual debate is that its not as simple as preferring certain types of vegetables over others. The reason being that one cannot divorce faith matters from the debate. If God condoned it, then it would be fine. But God doesnt. Just the same way he doesnt condone fornication, adultery, beastiality, theft etc. And thats why it becomes wrong not a mere preference. Generations past long discovered that keeping within God's boundaries is best for society...and therefore that society cannot in keeping with "best interest" tolerate certain "preferences". So what shall we say about those who prefer to steal? to have straight sex with kids? or have straight sex with unwilling women?

    I can bet you anything that the "debate" at its root, is not really about homosexuality being legal or illegal...the real issue is the "sin question"..

    EWM

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  6. EWM what I did not address is the reason why such issues would not be preferred. I am a woman of faith so one of the main reasons is not just that I find it physically not endearing, but it is also because of my faith. However, there are those who do not share my faith but still do not appreciate the practise. Then there are the members of the Other Sheep Fellowship, who consider themselves Christian, have their church and Bishop, and are actively gay. Faith is one factor, but it cannot be the only factor. We need to learn to agree to disagree on this one, and stop declaring war on each other. At the end of the day, we must find a way to live together.

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  7. This is such a multi faceted discussion...you realise life cannot be lived by "agree to disagree". This "live and let live" graduates to a level called "Law" and the makers of "law" are the result of a political process...and political outcomes are as a result of value systems..and value systems end up at the faith level...and thats why i say that at the root is the whole question of "sin or corrupted nature" . If we are all so good, there's absolutel no need for the law. I know am being somewhat philosophical...but this holds across the board and is independent of the question of the day. It can be homosexuality, pedophaelia, fornication, rape, adultery, theft, lying, etc...I daresay even traffic matters...

    EWM

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    Replies
    1. Few things
      1. LGBT is not a lifestyle. I would guess you are straight and you get attracted to men. You didn't have anything to do with your sexual choice. You just found yourself attracted to men. Just like I started admiring women as early as six years old.

      2). When you take someone for dinner, you make a number of conscious choices. More often than not, you will never tell them they have poor table manners. If we could do the same for LGBT, just leave them alone, they won't give a damn about you and me either. It's not like they are asking you to love them, after all you don't love everyone. Do you?

      3). You definition of human rights is too narrow and therefore won't cut. You view everything in religious lens. There are no universal religious beliefs. Christians do accepts gays, others don't. We cannot therefore depend on people's opinions to assign rights. That is why human rights are secular. Remember slavery? Whats the relationship between slavery and Christianity?

      4). In a country (Kenya) full of pretentiousness and hypocrisy, trying to advance your argument using the institution of marriage is weak. Who many married people who practice infidelity do you know?
      Also, you don't need the institution of marriage to procreate, neither is that the main idea of people coming together.

      5). You have traces of homophobia. Homophobia is "irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals", by the virtual of the fact that you want to deny them rights. Sorry.

      6). If you want to know how irrational acculturation can be, looks at how Kenyans behave when they see a snake. That is exactly how feel the first time we hear of homosexuals. At least, the fear for snakes can be rationalized because some are poisonous. But we don't even fear lions that much. But since we were taught snakes a demonic totems, most of us have developed a completely different outlook. Should we think twice.
      When I ask people whom they would be more afraid of or hate, a robber or a gay person, the answer is always a gay person. Being gay is worse than stealing.
      Would you then advocate say we kill all gay kids when they are born. That I guess would be a better way to protect them from all the suffering and also protected our 'clean' world.

      Finally, this is a thing about me,

      'Women who are fat are not my thing. And they shouldn't expect me to treat them as models. If They chose their fat life, which I don't like but I've let them live it. But they shouldn't expect me to come along and embrace them as fat they are. It will never happen."

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  8. There are two points to note:

    Firstly, human rights are inalienable as you say but they are not given to us by God as you suggest but rather are both universal and egalitarian values. To bring God in such a blanket fashion into this debate is to allow ambiguous religious sentiment and the precedent been far from good. Slavery, colonialism and apartheid, all very heinous crimes against Africans were justified, supported and propagated by the Church. The world is full of very divergent views of God and as an agreement is unlikely to happen anytime soon, we must stick to a moral code that is both universal and egalitarian.

    I must say that the preference issue bears resemblance with segregation and civil rights i.e. I like the 'blacks' but don't think we should go to school together or intermarry.

    Please allow me to quote scripture for the second point.
    Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
    27 So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.
    28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

    Notice at this stage Mankind represented both male and female but in the form of ONE person i.e. one man, Adam. There is plenty of talk about procreation but none about marriage. Lets continue reading...

    Genesis 2:18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
    20... But for Adam[f] no suitable helper was found...
    22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
    23 The man said,
    “This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
    she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”
    24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

    Joy, these passages strongly suggest that Mankind was able to procreate BEFORE they got married. Thus the reason for marriage cannot be simply aggregated to procreation as you suggest but perhaps has more to do with companionship, support, help as stated in the quote 'it is not good for man to be alone'. Clearly then, the argument (read myth) that same-sex marriages are illegitimate because they cannot procreate is not really Biblical. In fact, one may argue that scripture has been misconstrued and reconstructed to support this view.

    It appears that the views in this post which claim to be open minded are actually thinly veiled Christian notions which are not entirely Biblical. For the next post, Joy is advised to either be totally honest and say 'I don't agree that gays should get married because we Christians have a tradition against it' or to use scripture with scholarly integrity.

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  9. That was a good piece.However as a christian we should be guided more and preach according to what the bible teaches.If we allow "live and let live" only....then we will be departing from Gods will and doing "our own gospels.God hates it(homosexuality)
    Why lie the bible says they will not enter heaven.Let them know that.

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  10. I said in my profile that I appreciate all views, even dissenting ones, and I'm grateful that you took me seriously on that. I want to clarify a point or two. First, I am not homophobic, neither do I have a trace of homophobia. What I think is what it is and I wrote it down shooting from the hip.

    Secondly, I have excellent legal training. I have above average aptitude. I have a stellar career as a Magisrate, and now as a Human Rights Lawyer. My interpretation of the law is succinct, and I am assured of the extent of my learnedness. 'Human Rights' movement today is a mutation of the struggle from the civil liberty movement. This mutation is such that, we as a race will never run out of causes to add to this list of Human Rights. For example, our Constitution has in the Bill of Rights, the Right to Information. Once in a while there is something valid to learn, but more often than not it is a cover for being nosy. Wikileaks is a fine example. Embarassing interesting tid bits, created all sorts of problems and knowing all of that has not provided any solutions. The point is, as long as there is society, there will be a community in minority. Human Rights, are now so wide, they are, quite literally the elephant in the room.

    Finally, God and spirituality, are seriously important to me. I can defend my faith, tell you why I believe what I believe. But you will find it foolishness, so lets not bother. I am aware of historical injustices perpetuated by the Church, done in the name of God. People use anthing at their disposal to achieve a goal they set their minds to. Believe what you believe, but also be able to defend what you believe. MY rights were given to me by God, and no man validates them, and no man can take them away. In fact, even when these days I constantly seem to be swimming upstream. Since I do what I do as a matter of principle, I'm contented.

    Thanks for your comments, I admit, I have gained some insight.

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