Hypocrites

Hey, I had to post this. With my comments.

Remember, I asked whether I was too angry... Long time ago, (it seems), I was spilling bile all over my posts here. I was really feeling bad. Hey, those days, my pain had no outlet but the blog. So, Princess, dear lil sis of mine who never visits these days, took me to task. That, I was whining, and whinging. That things were not as bad as I put them to be, that I was so full of self pity. She was joined by Spiralx [glare]

Hey, maybe I was. Full of self pity that is. [sighhhhhhh], she can be tough, lil sis there.

Anyway, I, errr, moderated. And did find that I didnt have to be that bitter. (Just wonder what would have happened if the bill (text here)had come out at that time! The bile on this blog would have chased away most...!) Anyway, when the bill came out, I told her that the gloves were off. She took back her words. Told me that she had not realised that things were that bad....! Hey, seems that our conversations on this were years ago.

One thing that used to irk me was the hypocrisy of people. Now, I find someone who is actually as incensed as I used to be. From Times on line.

The anti-sex brigade are the worst of hypocrites

Those who want to police the behaviour of women and gays do not really have faith in their traditional vision of sexuality

David Aaronovitch

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Diligent readers of yesterday’s Times will have come across the report about the imprisonment in Malawi of two men who had just become engaged. Tiwonge Chimbalanga — a transvestite — and Steven Monjeza, both in their early twenties, pledged themselves to each other in front of 500 witnesses, and then were carted off to jail, and may now face a sentence of 14 years.

The fate of the two men may have gained salience from recent events in Uganda. There the parliament has been considering a draft law, drawn up by a David Bahati, MP for West Kabale, entitled the Anti-Homosexuality Act, whose provisions aim to “prohibit any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex”, with penalties including life imprisonment and — for “aggravated homosexuality” — the death penalty.

One can only marvel at the Bill’s more comprehensive provisions, such as the one defining that a “ ‘sexual act’ ... may include the touching of another’s breast, vagina, penis or anus . . .” and that “ ‘touching’ includes touching — (a) with any part of the body; (b) with anything else; (c) through anything . . .” 

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But I found myself wondering whether “conservatism” really accounted for the sense of hysteria and imagined threat that seems to animate those who describe themselves, in whatever country, as moral traditionalists. Is what they represent an antagonism to harmful change (in which case they would, always, have a point) or something else altogether?

Let’s start this line of inquiry by asking a simple question. Besides Messrs Chimbalanga, Monjeza and perhaps a few of their friends, are there no gays in Malawi or Uganda and have there been none, in any significant sense, throughout African history? Is it just now, as a product of globalisation, that homosexual Malawians and Ugandans have been brought into existence? It seems unlikely. 

Uhhh! Maybe I should have called this 'Debunking Lies'. For, indeed, Messrs Ssempa, Langa, Nsaba-Buturo, etc are very keen to kill us because we are 'importing' a foreign behaviour, and 'corrupting innocent Africans...!

And, of course, I have to confirm that I and my partner are gay, and Ugandan. African. Hey, my dad used to impress me to cram the names of my forefathers, back when I was young. 7 generations of males. And, they were all African men...! I know, I am African... ha ha ha ha! And, I am gay.

But let us continue with David Aaronovitch

It seems most likely that there are millions of gay Africans pretending to be something else, or else who are tolerated as shamans, or who themselves persecute overtly gay brothers and sisters the better to escape detection. (Of course, like gayuganda here...!)

We are talking here about sexual hypocrisy. The New York Times yesterday revealed that a recent conference in Uganda that prepared the ground for Mr Bahati’s Bill was addressed by a trio of sexually conservative American evangelicals. According to one of the organisers, their theme was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda”. (Ah, quoting the esteemed Stephen Langa. You tube videos of the same are available!)

The conservative evangelical movement in America is famous for many things, and its many sexual scandals are one of its most celebrated products. Take Pastor Ted, as Colorado Springs preacher and leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard, was known. For years it was all morality and family with Ted until a rent boy called Mike Jones disclosed Pastor Ted’s taste for gay sex laced with methamphetamine. It wasn’t true, said Ted. Then, yes, the bit about drugs was true, but not the gay sex. And then, finally, the gay stuff was true too.

Hypocrite, I crow...! Hypocrites. What of the Senator something 'I am not gay'? Craig or something...

What else but hypocrisy and denial fuelled the toleration of priestly sexual abuse in the Catholic churches in Ireland and America? And what else could one expect of an institution that demanded (not recommended) celibacy and condemned masturbation as a sin? 

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When you hear someone say “our women are our jewels” you are almost certainly listening to a liar. 

 I love this kind of rant. Truly!!!!

None of this is unfamilar to any Westerner with a sense of history. St Augustine wrote that “whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman” and St Thomas Aquinas considered woman to be “defective and misbegotten”. Yet both partook. And in a low-key way it still survives, this drive towards the internal lie.

Yes, yes, Remind them!

Back to Africa to pull this together. Mr Buhati’s Bill says that it wants to “protect the cherished culture of the people of Uganda ... [and the] legal, religious, and traditional family values of the people of Uganda” from homosexuals. In other words, the structures and sexual mores that he considers to be so loved and natural are simultaneously so incredibly fragile that they must be protected, on pain of death, from even the example of other ways of having sex. 

Forgive my triple emphasis. Seems necessary. Call the liars what they are. Liars and hypocrites! Of course they will not listen. The log in the eye blinds them to everything but the twig in MY eye. But, what a sense of satisfaction I get!

The sexual conservative’s true hypocrisy is that he doesn’t really believe in his own idealisation. Men will be inflamed by the sight of hair, women will bear other men’s children at the fall of a veil, boys will suddenly cast off the tedious ways of heterosexuality and put on the gaudy garb of gayness. In truth, sexual conservatives wants to make everyone else pay for their own dark thoughts. 

Ahem.

Now, to the grand conclusion, which he made the Title...!

The anti-sex brigade are the worst of hypocrites

Uh, indeed, they are...!

Thanks David!


gug