Monday, September 22, 2008

Reply to the Doctor

Most likely the doctor was expecting this kind of reaction. If he wasnt, well, he has got it. From a letter to the Editor in the New Vision today.


Society will always condemn deviants!

Sunday, 21st September, 2008


EDITOR—I would like to comment on Dr. Paul Semugoma’s article “Same sex attraction is not a disease” published on September 17. Homosexuality may not be a disease but it certainly is a deviation or perversion. The culture of a society is there precisely to limit the deviations of individuals from the norm.


It is the social sanctions of societies that keep its members on the straight and narrow path against their natural desires.

Many people do have compulsive desires to pilfer other people’s properties even when they do not need those items. Others cannot simply keep to a single woman in their sexual life.


These people are simply wired to derive pleasure from these activities which our society condemns. Some have agonised and even contemplated suicide in their honest fight against these social deviations. But we can also argue like Semugoma, that they have failed because that is who they are.


Should we therefore not condemn pilferers, night dancers, philanderers because according to . Semugoma’s blueprint, these people are made like that? It is in their genes! Won’t we also use the same arguments to explain the behaviour of rapists, murderers, dictators, etc?


Semugoma should know that for most people, life is a struggle to control their inborn desires and conform to what the majority of society considers right! Some people succeed better than others but culture is there to ensure everyone tries.


Rogers Mataka

Kampala



13 comments:

gayuganda said...

Well,

maybe the doctor should just point out that he is, after all, a doctor.

But, well, that might not suffice for the incesed man who wants us deviants condemned. Sniff.

Anonymous said...

Is the individual who prefers to use his left rather than right hand a deviant?
Methinks, looked critically, every (wo)man is a 'deviant'. Or, who is that individual that is in perfect conformity with all the demands of 'culture'.
Let us have another argument!


Gay Nigerian

spiralx said...

The letter writer spells out his personal bias when he uses the emotionally loaded terms "deviation" and "perversion".

After that, there is no argument to be given or received by him, is there! He is prejudiced ('pre-judging'),and the rest of his letter is just there to explain his prejudice.

Not impressive.

Princess said...

Everyone must conform to society rules?!

Princess said...

He's the first of the lot to take the time to edit his article though.:P

gayuganda said...

Ouch Princess,

but it is fair to remind you that the Letters editor must have had a hand there!

Anonymous said...

Gug, the fact that Semugoma is a doctor is not a criterion for us to assume that everything he says is correct. After all, thousands of fellow doctors in Africa are just as homophobic as that Mataka fellow who wrote that comment in the newspaper.

Don't get me wrong, I'm gay myself, but lets not jump in the air everytime a doctor tells us to do so. Doctors have been wrong often, and it wasnt that long ago that a Consultant paediatrician in the UK was struck off becos he wrongly declared that several children who died had been killed by their mothers, although it was later found that they had actually died of natural causes.These poor women even served time in prison before it was found to be a miscarriage of justice. Doctors are themselves human, and are prone to the same weaknesses and fallibility as everyone else.

That said, most sensible people know that same-sex attraction is not a disease, and homosexual expression is just another variety of normal human sexuality.

gayuganda said...

Controversial,

You sceptic!!!! I mean, you always have to be sceptical. Wonder what it is like to live in your skin!

Well, I guess the fact that he quoted from other docs and world bodies does strengthen his case. I mean, he is not basing on his opinion, but on those of others as well. A consensus opinion it would be?

gug

Anonymous said...

LOL! Gug, scepticism is a way of life for me. I even sometimes get to make a few bob from criticising things, even things I agree with.

There has to be someone with the capacity to see the other side of the coin and put a persuasive argument forward dont you think?

gayuganda said...

Scepticism as a way of life? Wow!!!!

Being paid for it, well, that is more like it.

The world is a sceptic's heaven. Me, well, I do love looking at the other side, but not for long, I amm afraid. Give me the facts, and then, on we go! There has to be some optimism!

Anonymous said...

Gug, scepticism and optimism can go hand in hand. The sceptic is the one who checks out all the loopholes before taking the plunge..

gayuganda said...

Ah, controversial,

the opening is too good to ignore.

The sceptic is the one who will never take the plunge, determined to iron out the last fault...!

Anonymous said...

Nah Gug, he doesn't seek to iron them out. He just points them out, often to the delight and enlightenment of the others.

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