3 THE RELIGIOUS SPHERE
3.7 THE CHURCHE S AND DANGERO US RHETORIC
208 http://www.kenyan-post.com/2013/02/william-ruto-in-trouble-from-gays-and.html, last accessed 15.5.2013
209 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/25/us-cameroon-homosexuality-idUSBRE8BO05O20121225, accessed 15.5.2013
210 See: Guilty by Association, Human Rights Violations in the Enforcement of Cameroon’s Anti-Homosexuality Law, HRW, Alternatives-Cameroun, ADEFHO, CAMFAIDS,March 2013
positions are staked out before the opposition can claim them. A (putative) African sense of what belongs in the private sphere and is passed over in silence is translated into a more typically American puritanical abhorrence of “sin”.
3.7 THE CHURCHE S AND DANGERO US RHETORIC
While only a small minority of religious people actively expresses hatred of sexual minorities, fear, ignorance and the religious rhetoric of sin are widespread, without a corresponding recognition of the separation of church and state, or sin and crime.
Churches need to do more to combat the misuse and misunderstanding of religion that further hate by politicians and media. In the 2013 Kenyan Vice Presidential debate, Mr.
Ruto, now Vice President, used the Bible to compare homosexuals to dogs.208 The senior Anglican Church hosts and Catholic hierarchy attending the debate do not seem to have disavowed this dangerous and dehumanizing rhetoric. Given Kenya’s experiences of mass violence, statements of this kind should not pass without criticism.
The Catholic Archbishop of Yaounde, Tonye Bakot, has contributed to a climate of fierce state repression of LGBTI persons. In December 2012, the Archbishop used rhetoric calling same-sex marriage a “crime against humanity”.209 In the context of imprisonment of adults for alleged consenting same-sex behaviour, shockingly unfair trials and violence and threats against LGBTI persons, their families and even their lawyers 210, indulgence in inflammatory and overblown rhetoric of this kind instead of standing up for human rights is extremely disappointing from a senior Catholic figure.
Christian leaders – like anyone else - should be called to account for slanders that LGBTI sexually abuse children or for highly tendentious references to the Bible that dehumanize LGBTIs. They should be engaged in dialogue about the dangers of highly selective and misleading use of fragments of religious scripture. Nevertheless, strategies would do well to distinguish between actual hate speech and sincerely felt religious fear.
Characterizing religious fears and taboos as hatred is only likely to increase polemics and will make it more difficult to identify and combat “genuine” hate speech. In this regard, care needs to be taken in using western standards and concepts to judge African contexts.
3 . 8 I SLAM
As with Christianity, scriptural and doctrinal texts contain passages used to condemn homosexual activity. The Quran (7:80) also refers to the story of Lot (or Lut), but does
211 See Muhsin Hendricks, “Islam and Homosexuality”, ILGA preconference on religions, 2007 Accessed at:
http://doc.ilga.org/content/download/4522/27322/version/1/file/ILGA-July06-Religions.pdf.
212 See International Commission of Jurists, Practitioners Guide No. 4 on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
213 http://www.ilgrandecolibri.com/2013/01/gay-rights-sudan.html
214 See works such as Habib, Islam and Homosexuality, Praeger, 2009. The SAFRA website contains a number of useful papers on these subjects: http://www.safraproject.org/bibliography_sgib.htm
not explicitly outlaw or prescribe punishment for what might today be called homosexual conduct or identity. A few reformist Islamic scholars in recent years have questioned simplistic conventional interpretations of the Lut story, saying that what it condemns is the abuse of power – male rape- against peaceful strangers rather than homosexuality as such.211 Indeed, given the lack of other provisions such as those referred to in the Hebrew Old Testament, the Quran provides even less of a foundation than Christianity or Judaism for an explicit condemnation of same sex relations. Some studies point to a greater historical tolerance in Islam.212 As with Christianity, the Lut story in the Quran is still a central reference point. In Sudan, the word “luti” is reportedly used to describe MSM.213
Renowned Sunni scholars (Islam Malik) declared that Islam prescribed capital punishment for homosexuality. In Africa, this position is followed as a matter of state law by Mauritania, Sudan, some states of Northern Nigeria and parts of Somalia. Beyond Africa, it is also found in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran (though with Shia sources).
Support for these extreme penalties can be heard even in countries such as Malawi, where the Secretary General of the Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) was reported as saying that “Homosexuality is sin and is punishable by beheading. The Holy Koran clearly states that any community which indulges in these acts is calling for calamities like those that happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
3 . 8 . 1 LI B ERAL AN D PROG RESSI VE I N T ERPRET ERS
Like the reformist Christian scholars who favour interpretations of the Lot story that focus on other offences (inhospitability, other sexual offences, rejection of a prophet), Muslim LGBTI activists point at other interpretations of religious texts. They point out that Islamic prohibitions and penalties come rather from the secondary source of the hadith (recorded sayings of the Prophet) and Islamic learning, rather than from the Quran itself. Different collections of hadith and the work of various ancient religious scholars contain sayings that can be used in support of conservative positions or more moderate ones. Other scholars point out and question the cultural, social and historical context within which the conventional Islamic understanding of the “Lut” story arose.214 As with Evangelical Christians, the lack of a single seat of Islamic authority means that there is no single source that can be referred to for an authoritative position. Islamic Scripture – the Quran – is often seen as being less open to interpretation based on reason and tradition than Anglican or Catholic Christianity. Some progressive Muslim scholars point to the general uncertainties surrounding Hadith, noting how the first
215 The initiative was by Ummayad Caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, in order to preserve this wisdom and/ or to guard against greater uncertainty.
216 Islamic Texts: A Source for Acceptance of Queer Individuals into Mainstream Muslim Society, Muhsin Hendricks, http://www.safraproject.org/downloads/MushinHendricks.pdf
217 Sunan Abu Daawud, Book 41, No. 4910.
218Organizations such as the World Muslim League, World Assembly of Muslim Youth have reportedly disbursed large sums since the 1970s to build mosques, train religious officials, and fund religious and humanitarian activities. The WML has offices in 16 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, covering all regions of the continent. The same can be said of the promotion of Shia Islam by Iran or the pre-2011 financing of activities by Col. Ghadaffi’s “World Islamic Call Society”.
initiative to write them down occurred a century or so after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.215 Muhsin Hendricks, an Imam from Cape Town in South Africa, notes that
“Hadith contain many inconsistencies, contradictions and distortions of facts. As definitive and reliable sources of Islamic law they are deeply problematic. It is no surprise that hate crimes against homosexuals, including the justification for their execution, stems largely from the hadith.”216 Hendricks also refers to other Hadith that indicate tolerance shown by the Prophet Muhammad towards effeminate, often cross-dressing males who were nevertheless Muslim believers, refusing the exhortation of followers around him to kill one of them.217
The alternative viewpoint is smaller and organizationally weaker in Islam than within Christianity. Voices such as that of Hendricks are in a tiny minority among African Muslims and are not often heard. Hendricks’ Inner Circle Movement, like the LGBTI positive Christian groups, has benefitted from financial support from US and European based funders, but this funding is minuscule in comparison to the funding of conservative Islam that comes from other sources.
International political representation of views attributed to Muslims is seen in the positions taken by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), although strictly speaking this is a political rather than a religious body. In 2012, the OIC took a position similar in on respect to that of the Holy see in that it referred to sexual orientation and gender identity as “controversial notions” thus not accepting their validity in international human rights law. The OIC thus opposed the consideration of these issues in the Human Rights Council, and notified the President of the Council that the OIC would not accept the recommendations of the Panel established under Resolution 17/19 on Discrimination and Violence based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
The OIC position is a far more complete rejection of the HRCs work in this area than the Holy See’s. While the latter may question “sexual orientation” as a notion in international law, it nevertheless refers to “homosexual persons”, condemning violence against them and calling for decriminalization, the OIC speaks only of their “abnormal behaviour”. Predominantly Muslim African countries supported the OIC statement.
African voting on UN resolutions is discussed in more detail in Chapter Six.
Just as a large variety of Christian sects promote their various views of Christianity, so have Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran promoted their own particular religious views in Africa with money, exchange visits and education and social programmes. Some commentators have observed that the promotion of conservative Wahhabism through wealthy Saudi Arabian and Gulf State financed organizations218 has diluted the influence of the more moderate Sufi Islam that traditionally predominated in parts of Africa. As
219 Dakar from Africa's gay capital to centre of homophobia” http://www.afrol.com/features/36319
220 Pell Gaudio, 2009, op cit.
221 See infra, Chapter two on the uses of hypocrisy.
with Christianity though, it would be a mistake to see the increased conservatism only as an expression of foreign influence. African social and cultural trends are important on their own account. HIV / AIDS has also strengthened the conservatism of recent decades. Since the 1970s, Islam in Nigeria has gained adherents due to its opposition to corruption and “immorality” in the face of a loss of credibility by government.
Opposition to liberal acceptance of homosexuality fits in with this general conservatism of the movement. As with Christianity, conservative movements should be distinguished from extremist ones, such as the murderous Boko Haram organization.
A more tolerant approach to same sex relations can be found in practice. Thus Dakar, which was reportedly well-known as the “gay capital” of West Africa until recent times has become noticeably more conservative. Written reports referring to “goorjigeen” or
“gordigen” (now considered to be a pejorative word) in Dakar go back to early colonial times, with writings by French authors on the subject. European observers writing in the 1930s reported a lack of social consequences for homosexual activity, though noting religious sanctions in the form of the refusal of Muslim burial. Male prostitution seems to have been common. Very high levels of tolerance, and even a high percentage of both males and females admitting to having had same sex experiences was noted in a scientific study in the 1970s. Likewise, there are well-documented accounts of tolerance of same-sex subcultures among Hausa men in Northern Nigeria. Reports say that the tolerant attitudes began to disappear in the past decade with the growth in power and influence of religious fundamentalism.219220 A number of factors have contributed to this, possibly including the more visible and explicit international activism for LGBTI rights that arose in the same period.221 The same pattern was seen in Sudan, where older people report a significant tolerance of LGBTI people until the introduction of strict Islamic government in the 1980s.
Senegal’s law against homosexuality (forbidding immodest acts with individuals of the same sex with a penalty of up to five years imprisonment) dates from the post-independence period, and not to the Islamic revivalism of recent decades. Nevertheless, both politicians and fundamentalist Islamic clerics were quick to invoke Islamic values and the threat posed to them by a supposed incursion of western decadence. The law forbidding homosexual acts was thus apparently unused and almost forgotten until recent years. Activists in Kenya noted that rights work among LGBTI is more difficult in Muslim dominated coastal areas than in Nairobi. This cannot be attributed solely to religious factors, as Nairobi is a cosmopolitan city. It is perhaps to be expected that people will continue to turn primarily to religion as a source of authority and law for as long as states fail to establish credibility. Nevertheless, religious people should also be aware of the dangers of a crude politicization of their faith and a mobilization of it in the service of prejudice, and even hatred.