Much Ado About Nothing: The Gay Hullabaloo

Uganda media crackled with emotional excitement:  Kadaga, Canadian Minister in Gay Row ;  Kadaga Gets Kudos for Defending Country. While many hailed the Madam Speaker of the Uganda Parliament, I have a contrarian opinion that her hysterical defense of Uganda government's stance on gay rights was a waste of energy. The lady was probably venting her frustration for having been undermined back home by her president who pushed approval of a rejected minister through a quisling of a deputy speaker suffering from a bout of the Stockholm Syndrome.


Gay issues, judged from the hundreds of online comments, get the juices of Ugandans boiling. You could probably get only about thirty or so comments on Dr. Besigye being hauled to a dingy dirty little police cell. Amazing priority, if you ask me.

My first encounter with the reality of gayness was with a girlfriend at school. As soon as a particular student nun walked in, my then girlfriend would light up. She finally revealed to me that she was in fact gay. At first I was taken aback but came around to live with it. It was not a statement of failing to satisfy her.  I am quite a stud and gave the goods to high praises from her! I would even lend her my car so that she could go visit the nun at her convent. Unfortunately for my friend, the nun threw cold water over her overture.

To say that gayness is unAfrican is a false premise and a statistical mambo jumbo.  And it is a travesty to see Ms Kadaga attempting shamelessly to ride on the wave of her  supposed heroism: Speaker Kadaga Promises to Revive Shelved Gay Bill  That is what her boss wants her  to be fighting for innocuous  peripheral  issues rather than putting his balls on fire in the  substantive erosion of the legislative powers by the executive.

There are gay people among Africans just as there are brilliant and upright people as well as  imbeciles, murderers, child-molesters, dictators and what have you. Africa cannot be the exception to gayness just as Africa cannot be the exception for economic and human progress. That African gays are coming out of the closet is a testament to their ability to put a name to what they had been feeling all along.

There are more serious issues that face Uganda. Clamping down on the sexual natures of some members of Uganda society is a diversion. Real men and women should tackle the distortions caused by the one-man rule.