Bobi Wine and those homosexuals

Jesus replied that none of them had sinned, but God had made the disfigured person to demonstrate His power!
If God is a living creator who consciously fabricates every human individual, then Semenya is a product of Divine sadism; of God deriving satisfaction from exhibiting a woman of confused genital arrangements, with all her psychological anguish.

So, God is either an imperfect creator (making mistakes) or a malicious one (sometimes deliberately indulging in the grotesque). Alternatively, God is resting, taking no responsibility for the refinements and imperfections in nature.

Beside the anatomical vagueness and hormonal imbalance in a South African athlete, nature presents a whole range of sexual eccentricities, both physical and emotional, with the emotional variations now increasingly understood in the context of scientifically measurable chemistry.

At the present stage in man’s evolution, homosexuality is clearly an abnormality. However, the liberal ethos of our times is very strongly opposed to the identification of any group as ‘abnormal’. It is a secular piety; a non-religious form of holiness.

Even for the disabled, our civilisation has devised ‘correct’ descriptions. It is a taboo to use language that alienates or stigmatises them. As far as possible, outside the criminal sphere, we must all enjoy the right of being regarded ‘normal’.

That civilisation has its momentum. Established religions cannot create their own world. To remain relevant, they struggle to redefine their moral perceptions and the very foundations of their faith.

Just as God was invented in the myths of earlier civilisations, this God can now only be worshipped in our existing civilisation.

Playing catch up, the Vatican further liberalised its stand on same-sex unions last week. It authorised their blessing in selected cases, but without granting the rituals and sanctity of marriage. The Canterbury position is even more liberal.

Navigating the sensitivities of this civilisation by high profile people is not a cakewalk. That is why, facing a combative BBC interviewer, Uganda’s Opposition leader, Bobi Wine, just insisted that Kampala’s NRM regime was targeting the Opposition, especially him, but stubbornly refused to elaborate or state clearly whether he had truly abandoned his old anti-homosexuality views.

The evidence is in the pudding. Indeed, NRM propagandists are targeting him for not stating clearly that he supported Uganda’s draconian anti-homosexuality law.

In essence, the ruling NRM wants Bobi Wine trapped in a corner where he is denied both local popular support and foreign-sourced financial help.

For its part, being in power, the NRM collects taxes. But the regime squanders and plunders the money with such an obscene sense of entitlement that it will never be able to sober up and sustain itself in power within the country’s limited means.

If Uganda’s Western benefactors retreat because of the anti-homosexual law and other clearer human rights abuses, the rulers will seek and beg other rich entities to fill the gap.

The danger now is that instead of friends and benefactors who are very soft on homosexuals, Uganda could end up in closer embrace with friends and benefactors who are very soft on any height of corruption or repression.

Shamelessly, the cosseted and variously compromised bishops who encouraged Parliament to denounce the first set of friends may not help us to divorce the second set of friends.

Alan Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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