•Why is the West strenuously pushing for same-sex marriage?
It’s back again on the front-burner big time. Homosexuality and their ability to get married stole the show at the august gathering – Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London last week. Member states, 53 nation-strong, former colonies of the British Empire of yore, must have felt a taste of their imperial past when they were told to do well to embrace homosexuality.
In a meeting encompassing some of the most influential leaders in the world today, the issue that stole the show is how to cajole members of the club to accommodate homosexuality and abolish laws in the Commonwealth debarring citizens from actualising same-sex marriages.
Theresa May, the British Prime Minister and current Chairman-in-Office of CHOGM had stolen the high moment when she admonished member-states that have existing laws against homosexuality and same-sex marriage to do well to rescind them.
May, speaking in Westminster, headquarters of CHOGM said: “Across the world, discriminatory laws made many years ago, continue to affect lives of many people, tens of millions of young people. Criminalising same-sex relations and failing to protect women and children.
“I am too aware that these laws were put in place by my own country, they were wrong then and they are wrong now.”
She added that: “Nobody should face discrimination or persecution because of who they are or who they love and the UK stands ready to help any Commonwealth member wanting to reform outdated legislation that makes such discrimination possible.”
To be fair, CHOGM raised and discussed so many critical issues roiling member countries and some concrete agreements were reached; including specific aids available to members to tap into. One of such issues is malaria which still ravages citizens of the Commonwealth. About 500,000 are said to die and about 500 million pounds sterling were available in aids to combat the scourge.
But Ms. May, a Christian and daughter of a vicar didn’t help the outcomes of this year’s CHOGM with what appears like her carrot and stick harangue over gays and same-sex marriage.
Just because Britain has come to the realisation that gay is okay and allowing them to marry themselves and build families in their own images being the ultimate sacrifice ‘straight’ people owe them, doesn’t make it universally right or appropriate for all member states and cultures. After all, it was only in 2014 that Britain was able to ring a law allowing such ‘unnatural’ marriage between man and man or woman and woman.
Apart from the fact that there are pressing issues like terrorism, money laundering, corruption and poverty stumping many member states, some of which they will gladly like to be brought to the front burner and possibly get some reprieve, making a podium issue of homosexuality and ‘pressuring’ independent states to abrogate laws is a bit over the board.
Homosexuality is a deeply sensitive issue which ought to be broached most gingerly. It is religious, cultural, moral as it is psychological. Opinions are still divided, sometimes violently, on this issue. While Christian and Muslim scriptures are clear on the evil of homosexuality; many cultures in Africa and other parts of the world also find same-sex cohabitation abominable.
Again, while the gay rights think it is a natural inclination and a way of life, many have concluded that it is a psychological blinker that could do with some medical intervention.
There is also the question of man altering the natural order and all the consequences both known and unknown. For instance, same-sex marriages would depend on artificial insemination for procreation. This means many may never have children. Sex between man and man and woman and woman living together is necessarily twisted and dare we say, perverted. This portends dreadful consequences as HIV-AIDS is already suspected to be prevalent among the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups.
Just as Christian and Muslim groups in Nigeria have admonished, we urge President Muhammadu Buhari and the government of Nigeria to ignore the British prime minister’s call and her blandishments for aids. It is not Nigeria’s major headache today and hardly anyone has been jailed since the law was enacted in 2014.
Besides, Nigeria is a sovereign state.