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Being Gay in Africa

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

In 2004, leading African gay rights activist Fannyann Eddy was brutally murdered while she worked alone in the office of the gay rights organization she founded in Sierra Leone. She was a courageous crusader for the rights of Africa’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Years after Fannyann’s death, the state of LGBT rights in Africa may at first blush seem woefully bleak, but in fact now is a time for cautious hope.

African NGOs and community groups championing the rights of Africa’s sexual minorities are publicly condemning institutionalized homophobia, filing lawsuits arguing for the recognition of LGBT rights, and taking their grievances directly to government officials — collective action that was exceedingly rare at the time of Fannyann Eddy’s death.

In spite of ongoing discrimination against Africa’s sexual minorities, fearless advocates fighting for LGBT rights continue to win small but significant victories. As the law school human rights program I lead grew, I remembered Fannyann and looked for opportunities to collaborate with some of those brave protest voices.

Full Story from The Huffington Post

Click here for gay marriage resources.

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Being Gay in Ghana

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

Perhaps, some of you would agree that we Ghanaians live in a culture of silence. A silence which we have, of course, imposed upon ourselves. Undoubtedly, there are certain things in our country, which we all seem to know about. However, due to certain unexplainable reasons – we have chosen to keep them in the closet.

I don’t know what it is about we Ghanaians. It seems to me that we are too afraid to face reality right in the face. Also, our unwillingness to open up to certain things has crippled us emotionally. We have this funny idea that silence is synonymous to absence, albeit untrue. Quite recently, Ghana-web published an article on homosexuality.

The article, in my opinion, was not all that controversial. I was, nevertheless, overwhelmed by the many comments – which flooded the article. Obviously, there were so many people who were offended by it. Others called for Ghana-web to be totally banned. As usual, the insults were many. Our Christian visitors on Ghana-web dusted their Bibles and started preaching. Bible verses were seen flying to and fro like bullets in flight. Unanimously, homosexuality was utterly condemned by both our Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters.

Full Story from GhanaWeb

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

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Zimbabwe: Gay Rights Workers Tortured, Released After 6 Days

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Two gay rights activists in Zimbabwe have been freed after six days in police custody where it is claimed they were abused and tortured. Ellen Chadehama and Ignatius Mhambi were arrested last week accused of possessing pornographic material and insulting president Robert Mugabe.

Their employer, Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (Galz), said the two were assaulted by police while in custody. They were also made to bend their knees into a sitting position with their arms outstretched for long periods and struck with bottles when they weakened and fell, according to their defence attorney, David Hofisi.

Nelson Chamisa, a government minister and spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change, condemned the alleged abuse: “Ill treatment or inhumane handling of any human being for any reason goes against our philosophy. We do not believe harassment is the best way of doing business. It flies in the face of the democratic order.”

Full Story from The Guardian

Click here for gay marriage resources.

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Origins of Homophobia in African Countries

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

African homophobia does not exist, nor does European homophobia, Asian homophobia or South American homophobia. Acts of homophobia occur in each of these spaces. We must question the idea that homophobia in Africa is unique. And we must understand homophobic acts within their specific local histories as these intersect with broader global histories.

In her recent article on Comment is free, Madeleine Bunting suggests that African homophobia emerges from capitalist-driven religious fundamentalisms, rapid and “chaotic” urbanisation that strains kinship ties, and the emasculation of men due to colonialism and globalisation. These claims are not wrong. They simply lack specificity and can be applied to any space.

How, then, do we account for what appears to be an intensification of homophobia across Africa? Let me offer a tentative answer based on two locations, Kenya and Malawi.

Full Story from The Guardian

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

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Desmond Tutu Fights to Stop Anti-Gay Furor in Africa

Sunday, April 4th, 2010

Battle has been joined against the criminalisation of homosexuality in Africa. Last week, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and more than 60 civil society and human rights groups called on Uganda to reject proposed punishments for gay sex that range from life imprisonment to the death penalty.

Activists in Malawi were steeled by pressure from Human Rights Watch for the dropping of a case against the first gay couple to seek marriage in the conservative country. Steve Monjeza, 26, and 20-year-old Tiwonge Chimbalanga will stand trial this week after holding a traditional ceremony last December.

Human Rights Watch said: “The case is an affront to essential principles of non-discrimination and equality. It singles out two people as criminals simply because they love each other.”

Full Story from The Guardian

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

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Holy War Against Gays in Africa

Monday, March 29th, 2010

In Uganda, there is a burning desire to send them to the gallows. Woe betide those who dare “marry” in Malawi. In Zimbabwe, President Mugabe and Premier Tsvangirai have surprisingly agreed to refuse to consider their rights in the new constitution, with the former describing them as “pigs” and “dogs”. In 38 of the 53 countries on the continent, homosexuals are treated like criminals.

Same-sex marriage has been legal in South African since 2006. But it is an exception. South Africa has become a whole new universe of tolerance, severed from a continent where homosexuality, often violently punished, is considered as an unnatural act, an abomination. According to AIDES, an NGO that fights against the spread of HIV/AIDS, of out of 53 African countries, 38 of them criminalize sexual relations between persons of the same sex. Penalties range from six months to 14 years imprisonment, depending on the country.

In Sudan, where the Islamic law (Sharia) in force calls for the execution of people who engage in same sex relations, no one has yet been killed by the law for homosexual act. But Frederic Moreau, General Secretary of another NGO, Ensemble Contre La Peine de Mort (Together Against Death Penalty), begs to differ: “In Sudan, even if there is no execution, it is extremely dangerous for the sharia to be involved (in this issue), because countries that apply those laws, whereby homosexuals are executed, can one day be cited as a pretext to condemn and execute.”

Full Story from Afrik.com

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

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Nigeria: New Anglican Primate: Gays Not Welcome in Transformation Effort

Friday, March 26th, 2010

New Primate of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, has restated the position of the Anglican Communion in Nigeria against the practice of gay marriage in the church. This followed a call by Acting President Goodluck Jonathan on religious leaders in the country to collaborate with the Federal Government in transforming the country.

Jonathan was the special guest at the formal handing over of the reign of office to Archbishop Okoh by outgoing Archbishop Peter Akinola, on Thursday at the Cathedral of the Advent Church in Abuja. In his short speech, the Acting President called on the church to shun corruption and discourage social vices. According Jonathan, “As a nation, we are challenged. Over the periods, we have failed to do what we should have done and we have done those things we should not have done. We know our problems. We want religious leaders to join us in solving the problems. We promise to do our best and we are totally committed to transforming this country.”

Okoh, who is also the chairman of the Nigerian Christian Pilgrims Commission, while delivering the sermon of the day, said, “We do not approve of a homosexual lifestyle and same-sex marriages. Some want us to see it as a normal alternative lifestyle to marriage between male and female. We are saying we are sorry, we cannot accept this in the church.”

Full Story from The Punch

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Zimbabwe: Gay Rights Proposal Draws Fire

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

The gay rights constitutional proposal by the MDC-T has sparked outrage in Bulawayo and Victoria Falls with residents describing the proposal as “an act of the devil”. Bulawayo United Residents Association (Bura) chairman Mr Winos Dube said homosexuality was an ungodly act, which should never be tolerated.

“Never, never, never, never should this be allowed in our country. It’s ungodly and unAfrican. It’s totally against our culture and our nation will be cursed if we allow that to happen,” he said. “Even animals respect each other, why should we not respect each other. A pig can tell a male from a female. You will never see a male pig trying to mate with another male.”

Mr Dube said Zimbabweans should not allow the West to impose their culture on them on the basis of advancing human rights.

Full Story from Chronicle.co.zw

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

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Desmond Tutu Speaks Out for Gays in Africa

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity — or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.

It is time to stand up against another wrong.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God’s family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.

Full Story from the Washington Post

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

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Africa: Gay Rights on a Conservative Continent

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

The gay rights movement, for all its endless challenges inside America and other Western nations, faces an even bleaker future in Africa. Pitted against the social aftermath of a continent that wallowed in colonial establishments for almost a century, and a stubbornly conservative culture spanning virtually every single country from South Africa to Egypt, Senegal to Ethiopia – the prospects do not look good for the countless Africans who seek to enter into same-sex relationships and marriages.

Even in a place affectionately known to its natives as the “continent of dreams” and the “rhythm of our existence” – Africa is no refuge for the LGBTQ community, a fact epitomized by developments in one small country sitting at the very heart of the continent. No Brown student has a legitimate excuse not to be interested in knowing about this.

Uganda is a beautiful country – carpeted with a central African equatorial savanna landscape and full of nature’s generous endowments of flora and fauna, a warm people whose charisma and sense of humor are never lost when they leave for faraway lands (if you meet one at Brown, you will understand) and an epic, storied history of a torturous political journey through colonialism and post-independence eras. The country’s former military dictator, the infamous Idi Amin who reigned between 1971 and 1979, inspired the Hollywood blockbuster thriller, “The Last King of Scotland.”

Full Story from the Brown Daily Herald

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

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