Mistakes in the homosexuality debate

Homosexuality has existed from time immemorial. Malawian laws criminalise homosexual relationships. Thus, people rarely declare themselves as such.

Looking at arguments for or against homosexuality, there appear to be many mistakes people make and this leads to not so correct a way of arriving at conclusions. This piece highlights some of the mistakes, though not in order of importance.

The first mistake is on the definition of homosexuality. If a problem is defined wrongly, then it becomes almost impossible to arrive at a correct conclusion.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a homosexual as a person who is sexually attracted to people of their own sex. So, if it is a man, for example, he will be sexually attracted to fellow men.

Therefore, it is wrong to look at a homosexual as a person who primarily sleeps with people of the same sex. Even heterosexuals’ primary function is not to sleep with people of the opposite sex.

Everybody’s primary function is to be a human being, fulfilling all responsibilities and enjoying all the privileges of being human. Sleeping with people of the same or different sex need not define a person.

A second mistake is to assume that the West wants to introduce homosexuality in Africa. This is far from the truth. Homosexuals are a minority group everywhere in the world, including  Europe and North America.

In these places, there are many people who do not like homosexuals. The difference is that in Europe and North America, homosexuals voiced their cause and others listened and researched to establish the truth. Governments moved in to protect the group.

In most African states, homosexuals dare not raise a voice. When they try to, people do not want to listen. Instead, they threaten them with arrests. Homosexuality has always been here. It never needed a European to introduce it.

A third mistake is to say that because God created man and woman, then being a homosexual is unGodly. Given that God created Adam and Eve, it is undisputable that they were a man and a woman.

But since creation, many people have been born. Not all of them are exactly as Adam and Eve. We can agree that not everybody is oriented like Adam and Eve. Some of us are black, others are white and so on.

About the fact of them being a man and a woman, these days we have men, women, bisexuals, transgender, intersex and many others. Not all of us are or can be exactly as Adam and Eve.

The fourth mistake is to assume that donors are not giving aid to Malawi because of her refusal to legalise same-sex marriages. By extension, this thinking assumes that if Malawi legalised same-sex marriages, then donor aid would pour into Malawi.

The truth is that there are many other issues for which donors are not as generous as they used to be. Donor fatigue is one of them. Until when did we expect them to help us? They also have their problems. No country is without financial problems.

The fifth mistake is to think that men who sleep with fellow men or women who sleep with fellow women receive money from Europeans or organisations fighting for their rights. This cannot be true. Most people do this by mutual consent.

If a person only gets attracted to people of the opposite sex, it does not mean that they sleep with them. Similarly, if a person only gets sexually attracted to people of their own sex, it does not mean that they go around sleeping with them.

There are many other wrong assumptions people make when putting forward arguments for or against minorities like lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI). Future generations will laugh at us if they look at how we arrived at conclusions on this topic. We need to shed off some of the wrong reasoning