Much ado about the Gay-marriage bill

By Muyiba Adetiba

I confess to looking away in embarrassment and disgust the first time I saw adult men kiss and fondle on TV. It was in a UK based soap opera. Today, years after my first encounter, I still feel uncomfortable— squeamish even— when I see two grown men tongue kiss. I suppose these things need getting used to because I don’t feel that squeamish about lesbians kissing and fondling on TV since I had seen the female version of same sex relationship at least a decade before the male version.

The western world had seen the open display of affection between people of the same gender decades before Africa started witnessing it and has therefore had a longer time to come to terms with the fact that a man can love another man and might indeed want to happily spend the rest of his life with him.

For example, I once went to a Playboy club in New York with a friend I had not seen for a while. Excited, we decided to take some photographs together, so we asked another clubber to snap us. We adopted different positions; we held hands, we held each other by the waist and by the shoulder. At the end, the clubber, a white guy, pointed at the two of us and

asked if we were an item. I didn’t know what he meant until my friend who was residing in the US, explained.

He dismissed our inquisitor by saying ‘don’t mind them. They think men who hold hands or show any affection in public have to be gay.’

This was in the 70s. So the western world has had a head time in coming to terms with a form of relationship the rest of us see as an aberration. This, if we must be honest, is not to say that same sex relationships are alien to us here. Most people who went to all boys’ secondary schools or all girls’ secondary schools would have witnessed same sex relationships at one time or another. Many of these people had gone on to have normal heterosexual relationships which makes one to think that the confinement of the boarding schools led many into experimenting with same sex the same way that the prison environments encourage same sex relationships.

It can thus be argued that many of these people lack personal discipline in seeking sexual release and can be described as being sexually promiscuous. This however presupposes that they can be ‘normal’ if they exercise a bit of self control. But it will be a faulty argument because we must admit that there are also people whose physiological make-up and hormonal imbalance make them to be naturally inclined to same sex relationships in the same way as a physiological make-up makes some people to be left handed or to have an above normal libido.

Should these people be forced to conform to our definition of the norm? Or should we because they are in the minority pretend they don’t exist? I think not. But should we go as far as to legislate for or against what can best be described as an errant development in some people’s physiological configuration? I also think not. I think tolerance and understanding should rule our actions on this.

In other words, would I be happy to have a child who is engaged in a same sex relationship? The answer is a no. But would I disown them? The answer is a no as well. And if I was to encourage the passage of any bill on the issue of sexual proclivities, it would not be on gay marriage. It would instead be on child marriage. Not only because of the medical and sociological implications to the poor children, but mainly due to the fact that the under-aged girls’ consent is neither sought nor obtained.

So how can a senate that looks away at child marriage, and dines with well known pedophiles, be passing a same sex bill involving consenting adults?

I am not saying the bill is not popular because it is. I am saying the bill betrays the hypocrisy in all of us. I believe there are far too many important issues in Nigeria than people’s sexual preferences.

The late Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti once said that more people died from malaria in Nigeria than from AIDS and if he had any money, he would pour it on the former. I feel much the same way about our need to prioritise issues of concern to us in Nigeria.

That said, I also feel very strongly about some foreign countries dictating our priorities to us. If we chose to be ‘old fashioned’ about our sexuality, then it should be our problem. And why should the West be the only custodians of values and human rights? I for one don’t see the moral values in the open display of sexuality on their streets, on their bill boards and in their commercials. And if they want to wax lyrical about sexual openness and sexual rights, why do they frown at polygamy?  especially as it is between consenting adults. And how does forcing Catholic adoption homes and other such institutions to give their children up to gay couples amount to respecting the rights of everybody?

And what does a country that cannot summon the courage to pass a bill on gun control have to teach us about values?

I think there is too much ado about this bill. Like Gamaliel, the wise man in the Bible said : ‘if it is not of God it will not stand. And if it is of God, there is nothing we can do about it.’

I wonder if it will be appropriate to end with the words of David Henry Thoreau. ‘Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so’.

vanguardngr