Homosexuality in Kenya and Uganda has sparked mixed reactions across the world.
Recently, the Ugandan parliament passed a bill that included the death penalty for those practicing homosexuality adding to the list of Mauritania, Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria.
Nearly half of the countries worldwide where homosexuality is outlawed are in Africa, according to a 2020 global review by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association (ILGA)
Out of the 54 African states, only 22 of them have legalized homosexuality.
For the majority of African nations, anti-LGBTQ+ laws date back to the colonial era, but the impact today is that LGBTQ+ communities face stigma, discrimination, and widespread threats and violence as a result of their sexual orientation and gender identities.
In 2006, South Africa became the first and remains the only African country to legalize same-sex marriage, with a constitution that also protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
A bill was also introduced in 2018, to criminalize hate crimes and hate speech, and in 2020 South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa passed into law the Civil Union Amendment Act, which prohibits marriage officers from refusing to conduct same-sex marriages.
Nevertheless, with a growing number of African countries legalizing same-sex relationships, there has been a glimmer of hope on the continent in recent years.
The recent countries to decriminalize LGBTQ+ are Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Lesotho, and the Republic of Seychelles.
Africa is a culturally distinct mode of being. Certain values are more prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa than in other geographical locations.
Being gay in Africa can pose culturally specific problems which the dominant, heterosexual culture may find hard to accept.
In African societies, an important factor in anti-gay agitation is the moral weight assigned to having children, and the emphasis on heterosexual intercourse as a way to achieve this.
Procreation ensures the continuation of biological heritage, through which the history of society unfolds.
Hence, raising children and contributing to a lineage is a vitally important community good.
In this way, biological reproduction through heterosexual sex becomes a moral responsibility.
To write off the preference for heterosexuality as pre-modern and as biased against homosexuals is insulting and unimaginative. Rather than condemning this preference, it’s more productive to find a way for culture to make room for homosexuality.
Some people describe homosexuality as “unnatural”, “anti-social” or “un-African”.
This is not true. Several studies, including one on 50 societies in every region of the continent, decisively support the conclusion that homosexual relationships constitute “a consistent and logical feature of African societies and belief systems.”
The argument that same-sex practice is unnatural because it violates human nature also overlooks the fact that sexuality is a natural feature of human beings.
Sexuality is part of what it is to be human.
To be human is to be a sexually oriented being.
The tendency in Africa to relegate sexuality to a relatively minor part of human life – to the drive to procreate – tends to treat homosexual expressions as inappropriate.
But sexual orientation is central to every person’s sense of self, and not just to a small part of it which can be lopped off or put on hold at will.
Accepting the centrality of a person’s sexual orientation to their humanity has significant moral implications which do not square with the existential and moral commitments of Africans.
Opponents of homosexuality put more emphasis on the duty to have children, and overlook a deeper value, that of building and sustaining a community.
They gloss over the role that homosexuals can play in achieving the latter task.
By Andrew Walyaula
