By: Prof. Wole Soyinka
Let us go back a little, nearly a year ago, to that earlier
attempt to interfere in, and legislate on sexual conduct between consenting
adults. Profiting from that experience, I would like to caution – yet again -
that it is high time we learnt to ignore what we conveniently designate and
react to as ‘foreign interference’. By now, we should be able to restrict
ourselves to the a priori position that, as rational beings, we make
pronouncements on choices of ethical directions from our own collective and/or
majority will, independent of what is described as ‘external dictation’. The
noisome emissions that surged from a handful of foreign governments last year
should not be permitted to obscure the fundamental issue of the right to
private choices of the free, adult citizen in any land – Asian, African,
European etc. Those external responses were of such a nature - hysterical,
hypocritical and disproportionate – that, speaking for myself at least, I could
only wonder if they had not been generated by a desperate need for distraction
away from the economic crisis that confronted, at that very time, those parts
of the world.
Hopefully, the majority of Nigerians have also learnt to sniff
out ploys of legislative distraction within the nation. At that initial
attempt to cloak prurience in legislative watchfulness, the timing of the
removal of the oil subsidy was coincident with a sudden obsession with
homosexual and lesbian conduct. Was this truly an accident of timing? And
now? Attempting to mobilize public sentiment against what many, admittedly, do
consider deviant sexual conduct certainly takes attention away from the crumbling
of society and the failures of governance in multiple directions. These range
from minimal infrastructural expectations to mind-boggling escalation of
corrupt practices in high places, and the basic issue of security in day-to-day
existence of the populace as it affects high and low, affluent or impoverished,
old and young, regardless of profession or records of service to Nigerian
humanity.
But, to begin with, I implore all those who boast the capacity
for reason: let us separate two distinct, albeit related issues within that one
bill tabled before our legislatures. One issue is: homosexual practice; the
other, same-sex marriage. I first became aware of, and alarmed by, the
conflation of the two – quite deliberate in most cases - when, after a lecture
at the University of Technology, Calabar, a year ago, I advised the
legislators to mind the numerous, and urgent businesses for which they were
elected, and take their noses out of sexual practices between consenting
adults. Either deliberately – as I have already indicated – or thanks to
the now familiar deficiency in listening that sadly characterizes Nigerian
responses to public pronouncements, the main reactions were unleashed against
something I had not even commented upon, which was: same-sex marriage.
With the now confirmed outing of this bill however, the law-makers have served
notice that their monitoring zeal is intended at nothing less than the right of
state interference in private lives, especially in personal relations of the
most intimate kind. This is the warning shot of legislative fascism. It has no
place in a democracy.
Basically, such legislations constitute improper encroachment on
personal lives, leaving the door wide open for all forms of social persecution,
intimidation and even – as we know very well in this society – incitement to
violence against targeted individuals, including lynching. Next, as
several nations all over the world have come to acknowledge after centuries of
blindness and hideous injustice, such state interventions glorify ignorance of
the science of the human body, and contribute to the elevation of limited or
zero knowledge on any subject to the altar of the morally sacrosanct.
The biological truth is this: some are born with imprecise
gender definition, even when they have sexual organs that appear to define them
male or female. Years, indeed decades, of scientific research have gone into
this, so what is needed is understanding and acceptance, not emotionalism and
the championing of ‘moral’ or ‘traditional’ claims. Let us take the
first. For those who base their position on moralities extracted from received
scriptures, permit me to state bluntly that articles of faith are no substitute
for scientific verities, no matter how passionately such faiths are embraced or
espoused, or for how long. In any case, faith is also a very private matter, so
what we have here is simply one private plaintiff, a ‘conscientious objector’,
attempting to lord it over the rights of another private entity, this time one
that yields to sexual impulses in obedience to Biological Scriptures. Now,
which one should lay claim to precedence?
We must make up our minds where we belong. We must choose
either to create a society that is based on secular principles, or else
surrender ourselves to the authority of - no matter whose - theocratic claims.
What this implicates is that the next time a woman is sentenced to be buried
live in the ground and stoned to death on the authority of one set of
scriptures, other scripture adherents must learn to hold their peace and allow
such ‘laws’ to run their course. The full implications of either position leave
no room for fence-sitting. The national train must run either on secular rails
or derail at multiple theocratic switches. No theology can be privileged over
another in the running of society. This means, theology and its derivates
cannot be privileged over material reality and its derivatives.
The science of the body is not limited to issues of consenting
adults alone. It is what guides the making of laws in rational societies, what
makes the law frown decisively on sexual relations with the under-aged, and
spells out just what the law means by ‘underage’ in specific years of
existence. Adult males earn several years in prison for sexual relations with
the under aged because scientific knowledge has identified – beyond argument –
the often irreparable damage that is done to a pre-pubescent body through
sexual penetration by males. Society therefore protects the potential victim.
Has an adult homosexual run to the law for protection in any society we know
of? Only where they have been, or are in danger of becoming victims of rape –
and there, the law is firmly on their side. Otherwise, the law should have no
interest whatsoever in any form of consensual sexual conduct between adults.
So far, we have only addressed the issue of the homosexual act
itself as it should concern – or should not – a nation’s legislatures.
Let us now turn to the related problem of same-sex marriages. My interest is
not – as a hysterical prelate, among others, tried to over-simplify in his
reaction to my observation in Calabar – it is not whether or not homosexual
marriages should be permitted or banned. Let us take it step by step.
The issue, to start with, is - ‘criminalisation’! Perhaps
such marriages exist in Nigeria – I am not aware of them. But we do know that
homosexual liaisons exist. Are they granted the status of marriage? Not that I
am aware of. Was there a threat somewhere that this might soon happen? Are they
a menace to society? Again, all this is shrouded under legislative mystery. No
case, to the best of my knowledge, has been brought to public notice where a
court registry has been compelled to register same-sex marriages. No priest has
been hauled up so far for sanctifying such a marriage. Always open to debate is
the right of institutions (civil or state) to be part of the formal mechanisms
for pledges that adults undertake in their relations with one another. Priests
– of any religious adherence – remain free to refuse to become involved in the
ceremonies of such associations. Individuals cannot be compelled to endorse
such conduct. It remains their right to privately ostracize or embrace such
liaisons – formal or informal.
The state however overreaches itself where it moves to
criminalize them. Biology takes precedence over ‘moral’ sentiment.
Physiological compositions are increasingly held responsible for a number of
mental and/or physical predispositions. Only in the past few decades was
schizophrenia successfully tracked backwards to – among other causes - the
contraction by mothers of some forms of ailment during pregnancy, as well as to
genetic transmission. We should learn to listen wherever the voice of the
empirical can be called upon to testify in human conduct.
On the ‘moralists‘, we urge a sense of proportion, and a turn
towards objectivity. Yes, a society without moral signposts is only a glorified
arena of brute instincts. Nonetheless, morality is far too often mired in
subjectivity, sometimes touted as ‘revelation’, erected on untested
foundations, increasingly subject to mass hysteria and manipulation. Morality
therefore – we must re-emphasize - when applied to the private realm of the
human body, must take second place to biology - morality either as
derived from cultural usage or religious givens. We are speaking of – plain
biological human composition, over which no individual has any control
whatsoever. No individual was responsible for his or her birth, for emerging as
a precocious being, a budding genius, or handicapped - either mentally or
physiologically. Those who evoke ‘morality’ so loosely should take care
that they do not keep company with theocratic warlords like al-Shabaab of
Somalia, who instituted amputation at the wrist for anyone found guilty of the
‘immoral’ act of shaking hands with a fellow human being of the opposite sex!
Permit me to address some of the anxieties – publicly addressed
or not – that I happen to have encountered. No one denies the perverse agency
of ‘peer pressure’ in certain societies – or institutions - where homosexuality
is considered ‘fashionable’, or even becomes a membership card for advancement
in some professions. It is also the admissible right of the individual to
experience and express disgust at the mere thought of homosexual conduct: the
complement, incidentally, also obtains among some homosexuals with regard to
heterosexual practice. I have encountered some who declare that the very
thought of heterosexual act makes them sick. Also, there exist the
bi-sexual individuals who live and die at ease – or with resignation - with
their complex anatomy. None of these tendencies justifies criminalization.
The heterosexual – or ‘straight’, to use that tendentious
expression - minds his or her business like the rest. Laws, if any are
promulgated in these cases, should be towards the protection of the vulnerable
in society, vulnerable from whatever cause, including deviations from the
sexuality of the majority genders. Non-consensual conduct is a different matter,
or coercion, such as rape or other forms of sexual abuse, and these apply both
to the homosexual and the heterosexual. I have had occasion to intervene in
boarding schools to demand protection for some young pupils whose lives were
bedeviled by sexual harassment from their senior colleagues. Their teachers
turned a deaf ear to the victims’ complaints to an extent that virtually
amounted to connivance. Now that is one area against which legislators might
usefully want to turn their legislative ire – such teachers deserve to be
brutally purged from their positions and made to face prosecution.
I shall be remiss if I do not also to address the appalling
evidence of hypocrisy among the law makers. New laws are being proposed for
private conduct that has never constituted a danger to the fabric of society.
By contrast, the notorious violation of existing laws by a member of the
law-making fraternity was rendered a non-event by a conspiratorial silence,
amounting to connivance and enthronement of impunity.
A former governor and present Senator violated the laws of two
lands – Egypt and Nigeria – through his sexual behaviour. Serial paedophilia
and cross-border sex trafficking are criminalized near universally. Laws for
the protection of minors are rigorously enforced in civilized societies. On
that, and allied issues, the law-making conclaves of wise men and women
remained mute or conciliatory. An opportunity to enforce the existing laws in
high places as a high profile deterrent to others was simply discarded. No new
laws have been proposed, not even as a sop to outraged public conscience, to
re-criminalize such acts, yet the legislatures take time off to make laws that
criminalize private conduct that have not constituted a threat to the
well-being of the vulnerable in society.
Is it too much to ask that our legislators cool their moral
ardour for a study period during which they seek to understand a phenomenon
that many hold abhorrent? (Please note: this is not intended as yet another
incentive to undertake expensive study tours around the world – the relevant
publications are available everywhere.) If there are scientific
explanations for homosexual conduct - and these have been expounded in
profusion - then a process of education is called for, enabling a more
empathetic response to what appears an aberration to the majority. That it
appears an aberration to some does not however make it immoral or socially
subversive. And foreign interventionists should – let me repeat - at
least exercise a sense of proportion, recalling that even within their own
societies, such issues are still up for debate, with see-saw decisions between
state and federal courts – examples include the United States - right up to the
present.
The high moral grounds that those nations attempt to occupy by
hurling threats of sanctions etc etc. merely strike one as extreme cases of
hypocrisy, unmindful of their own scriptural injunctions that urge: ‘Physician,
heal thyself ”
Culled from: http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/the-sexual-minority-and-legislative-zealotry/132815/
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