Gay is just another word for Merry!

For a very long time I have been a self proclaimed homophobe. In fact, the topic is far concluded and does not come up for discussion. Not until recently. Kenyans have been fighting the prospect of gay and lesbian persons being granted the right to openly relate, marry and enjoy such rights as are conferred a heterosexual couple. In fact, Kenyans demonstrated just how much they detest homosexuality when they nearly lynched a gay couple suspected to be planning secret nuptials in the coastal town of Mombasa. It was a retaliation. Only months before that, a couple in the United Kingdom had caused so much embarrassment to the Kenyan community by wedding openly. I joined the bandwagon. I was hateful, even vengeful. But that was before I read an article by one Makau Mutua who is a Professor of Human rights. Mutua introduced me to a new term - Private Morality. Being the Tin Man, I opened my mind to the concept and I have since tried to understand what the furore is concerning gay relations. My research turned up shocking revelations. The African defense, and mine as well, has been that homosexuality is foreign, undesirable and un-African. That was about to be changed. I discovered that it is neither foreign, un-African nor was it undesirable until gun-totting religious preachers set foot in Africa.

Let me take you back to the beginning. 'Gay' is in itself an adulteration of an otherwise modest word whose meaning did not go beyond 'Showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement. Merry.' It could also be used to mean, 'Given to social pleasures.' That is what the inventor of the word originally intended it to mean. So when did it mutate into the contemporary allusion of  'relating to, or having a sexual orientation to persons of the same sex?' The secret lies within the innate and original meaning of the word. Homosexuals were throughout history happy and free spirits. Merry. Over time, they came to be known as 'gay' and when the attitudes toward them changed, so did the attitude toward the word. Gay today is nearly exclusively used to mean homosexual. In reality, gay is just another word for merry!

So when did we come to hate gay people so badly? When did homosexuality become such a detestable concept especially in Africa where it was born, bred and then spread to all the other corners of the world? Yes! Homosexuality in fact originated from Africa. The first recorded couple was that of Egyptians Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, 2400 years before Christ is said to have been born. Dont get shocked now, let me finish. After Mutua, I was introduced to one anthropologist called Stephen Murray. He must be one curious person because he dug into the subject way back and reported what would be quickly burnt before Africans discovered the truth. In his exposition, Homosexuality in “Traditional” Sub-Saharan Africa and Contemporary South Africa, Murray reveals how homosexuality existed in indeginous African communities before intrusion by Europeans and Arabs. He espouses that especially where Western influences (notably Christian and Marxist) have been pervasive, there is now a belief that homosexuality is a decadent, bourgeois Western innovation forced upon colonial Africa by white men, or, alternately by Islamic slave traders. In contradiction, he proceeds to show how many communities in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Kenya, Congo, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa - and I need not go on - had homosexual practices. The paper has 47 pages of a summary.

When I read that, I felt naked. I felt exposed. My sole defense against gay people had been shattered. If that defense was that we will only accept what is African, then we are estopped from denying any persons the right to merry expression in the name of homosexuality. After all, our indigenous communities not only condoned, but they encouraged homosexual behavior. In many of the case studies, sexual relations between men and boys was accorded an official 'marriage' status complete with dowry payment. It is explained that the custom, and not the vice, was allowable in adolescent ages as young boys were not allowed sex with girls before marriage. Relations when hunting or shepherding was an allowable relief. In other sources, South African warrior Shaka Zulu has been painted as a homosexual who had page boys at his call who were not allowed to marry until they were 'of age.' That was generally until they were no longer attractive to the chief and he had acquired younger interests. He was not alone. Many African leaders in the pre-colonial times took with them boy-wives who were not expected to engage in combat but would provide other services to the elder fighters.

By now you must be in utter disbelief. I was. You must be demanding evidence. Unfortunately, African art was not elaborate enough in the day and age to provide the record. But take for instance the top picture of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum. Notice how they are holding hands. They are in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art. Many other cultures outside Africa have art that records the existence of homosexual relations, but the absence of such evidence in Africa is not an assertion of absence. Think about it, traditional communities never had names for airplanes or computers. That is because they never existed. But names referring to homosexuals and homosexual relations were well available. The Ethiopian Konso have two words each for penis, vagina, and sexual intercourse, but no less than four for ‘effeminate man’. Among the Mossi in Burkina Faso, sorones were chosen among beautiful boys aged seven to seventeen. In coastal Kenya, mabasha and mashoga  were known to exist. As a matter of fact, pagan religions, as they would be described today encouraged homosexual practices as part and parcel of their rituals.

Enough of history. Here is the present. We have many men and women practicing what is evidently very African. We are hating them and we have denied them the liberty that our traditional culture protected. We are homophobic. We have made what was culturally an acceptable pastime and source of relief illegal and unacceptable. We have our religious biases to blame. We are innocent. The question is, how do we proceed from here? I am reminded of the new phrase introduced to me by Professor Makau. Private morality. In simple terms, this means that an individual's private conduct is not a governmental or societal concern, and should be free from intrusion. In comparison, public morality refers to the conduct that affects other individuals or the larger society, and which should be governed by externally imposed laws. The long and short, whether Africans, nay, Kenyans choose to relate to whichever extent within their gender is none of our business. It is their private choice, morally speaking. But where I will remain unequivocal is as concerns whether or not same sex couples should be allowed marital status and opportunities to adopt and raise children. Regardless of what Dr. Makau will say, this cannot be allowable. Their choice to relate within the gender should be taken to be a forfeit of the right to raise children.  If at all homosexuality is to pass for a hobby and in that sense the rest of us are to look the other way, then gay people cannot pretend a special right over us. Tennis players, jockeys, swimmers and all those of us engaged in a variety of hobbies do not demand rights to marry and adopt children. Neither can they.

In conclusion, I will not pretend that my arguments will change the Tin Man readers' attitudes toward gay people. All I know is that I have shared a perspective that was most likely unavailable until today. I remind you that homosexuality was is not a European import. It is an African export.  I remind you that being gay or not being gay is a matter of choice. Private Morality. So in as much as we are not judged for liking slim, or robust, or light, or dark women - or men, then we must allow everyone else the choice in as far as how they relate. A day will come when a sister, a brother, a daughter or a son will reveal their fondness for the same sex. Maybe then, we shall realize how dire a situation is. It shall be our duty then to make it clear that homosexuality is not a genetic defect. It is a choice. A hobby. An experiment. It shall be our hope that  after adolescence they shall return to heterosexuality. Otherwise, may the noise about gay rights cease. Keep your business to yourself. Remember, gay is just another word for merry!

The Tin Man.