No, you are not reading a headline from The Onion: according to BBC News, the southeastern African country of Malawi will repeal its ban on gay sex. In a speech delivered today to the nation’s parliament, President Joyce Banda said that the ban needed to be overturned “as a matter of urgency.” Said urgency appears to be the result of recent pledges by a number of Western leaders to cut aid to countries that criminalize LGBT people and a landmark address to the United Nations by American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton where she called on governments worldwide to respect gay rights because they are human rights.
The BBC reports that overturning the ban will be unpopular with religious leaders and the general public in Malawi, but President Banda has the votes she needs in Parliament to pass the repeal successfully. It will be the first African nation overturn its anti-homosexuality so since 1994, when South Africa did so.
Let’s hope this encouraging trend continues!
This is great! Given the rampant homophobia in many African nations, this is a start and an example for the rest.
I personally believe Hillary’s superb U.N. speech had a lot to do with this.
And John, you, Wayne and Even at TWO are also doing a slam dunk job of exposing the faces and words of the gay haters to the world. Every LGBT person in the world owes you a debt of gratitude.
We have a long way to go, but we are going there faster than I ever dreamed possible.
Jerry
Congratulation Malawi! But I think people should respect the rights of African nations to stay homophobic, since it’s very ingrained in their culture and has been since the beginning of time. I believe everyone has a right to safety and it should absolutely be decriminalized, but as an American living in Rwanda… it is wrong for western people to preach to Africans what they should accept as normal in their country. Safety and security yes. But gay rights means different things in different parts of the world. Gay marriage here is as foreign as a person marrying their child or sibling. it is absolutely taboo. The world is big enough for different cultures… some homophobic and some less so.
I would actually say the homophobIa there is due to the evil influence of The “Family”, an extension of the blood cult that has so much influence in the States. Their wanton bloodshed isn’t enough for them here, so they have to pollute other cultures by telling them they must kill LGBTs. Harming and killing others for no reason at all cannot be a right, as it infringes on others’ right to life.
More on topic, congratulations, Malawi.
But I think people should respect the rights of African nations to stay homophobic, since it’s very ingrained in their culture and has been since the beginning of time
No, no, no, no. That argument is so defeatist it’s almost painful.
Homophobia was also an ingrained part of life in the West also, but that changed with time and exposure, as it can and will change in the African nations.
Are you trying to say (and please clarify if you’re not) that the peoples of Africa are…what? Too old-fashioned? Not smart enough? Too backwards to see past bigoted lies and discover how harmless GLBT communities in their own countries are, so we just leave those communities and people to be killed in some twisted form of respect for the “culture” of their country?
We’re not even talking about marriage yet; this is the right to love who you wish and not be jailed or killed by the government. Despite the lies and BS of preachers and politicians and conspiracy theorists in and out of Africa, the concepts of same-sex attraction and love are not some Western concept brought over by white people (hell, of ALL the things white people and Western culture have to answer for the the mess that is Africa, that is decidedly not on the list). We have to help those fighting the good fight in their home countries combat those lies and change their culture.
Sometimes, the status quo culture is wrong. There are, will, and always have been GLBT people all over the world and they all deserve the right to live freely.
There’s cultural sensitivity, and then there’s just turning our backs on the vulnerable. There is no respect for the indefensible.
Africa wasn’t always this homophobic. Far from it. As with most everything else there, it’s a western import. North Africa is Muslim, so that would have happened there anyways. But most of sub-Saharan Africa is predominately Christian and the missionaries poisoned peoples’ minds.
Even the, it wasn’t this bad until maybe 10 years ago after US missionaries and pastors stirred up the s**t even more.
There are actually African tribes that tolerated and even accepted some forms of same-sex behavior or relationships. For example some tribes allowed women to assume male gender roles, marry other women and raise children together.
Carla said “But I think people should respect the rights of African nations to stay homophobic, since it’s very ingrained in their culture and has been since the beginning of time.”.
As Steve said, that’s not true. Africans were accepting of gayness until European colonization forced anti-gay laws on them which eventually turned Africans anti-gay themselves. African nations do not have a moral right to persecute gays and deny them equal rights and no way should anyone respect their doing so.
Shoulda done that in the south, too. Slavery and segrgeation were deeply ingrained.
Shoulda done that in europe. Those damn pesky Jews. 1900 years of antisemtiism was also deeply ingrianed, and the holocaust was just the natural outcome of that.
Shoulda done that in…wait for it.. Rwanda. Damn hutus. damn tutsis. Hundreds of years of tribal hatred was so deeply ingrained.
and it is foolish to think we might have more wisdom and heart than our ancestors.
Forward to the past!