Labeling to Silence

 

By Nwachukwu Egbunike

Also I cannot but ask: where were you all when this bill went through the first, second and third readings in the Senate and House of Representatives respectively? Has the talk about this bill not been on for the past three to four years? But as soon as the president gave his assent to the legislation, we have been singing non-stop.

The shattering chatter in Nigerian blogosphere that followed the presidential assent to Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill 2013 is yet to fade out. Gay marriage is a sensitive issue and expectedly, there has been dissent and praise from Nigerians. However, as is wont in Twitter Nigeria, the dissenters have been quite vocal and have left none in doubt about their views. They have raised their voices in anger and have tried to label those who disagree with them or cow them into shameful silence.

Let me make it clear right from the outset – I do not hate gays [actually I try not to hate anyone – be they polygamists, bigamists or whatever] but I support the law. I have no wahala with what two men/women do in the privacy of their rooms. It’s just that I prefer that they keep it to their rooms but when they decide to marry, I think it becomes public business. And when it becomes public business, I reserve the right to comment, a right which our dissenters and new defenders of unfettered conjugal freedoms would want to deny me. And they try to do this with a vehemence which I find offensive.

The position on Twitter of these advocates of unfettered rights to all forms of connubial arrangements can be summarized thus; anyone who supports this bill is ignorant and needs to be “educated”. However, this education by our Gnostic-like intellectuals spares no fools and by necessity is achieved via arrogance. For the simpletons who are so daft to accept this legislation, do so because they are prisoners of religious superstition. The slurs have been creative: it goes from “hypocritical bigoted bigot” to “fanatical religious moron”. I have stumbled on others like: arsenic homophobe, close-minded, barbaric dim-wit, etc. The list is endless.

It’s a matter of love and we have been told that it’s vile to deny marriage to gays. However, marriage is not available to all who are in love. Loving a person does not give you the right to marry them. A man cannot marry a woman who is already married; a woman who loves two men cannot marry them both. Besides, allowing gays to marry will not stop marriage discrimination for two consenting adult siblings or a mother and her son. The same applies to the over-hyped expression of sex being between two consenting adults. What happens when those ‘adults’ are two siblings or a father and her daughter?

Also I cannot but ask: where were you all when this bill went through the first, second and third readings in the Senate and House of Representatives respectively? Has the talk about this bill not been on for the past three or four years? But as soon as the president gave his assent to the legislation, we have been singing non-stop. This is democracy, if you want to change this law, join a political party and contest for HOR or Senate from your constituency. After all, 2015 is the year for general elections.

Besides, this law was not made ex nihilo! The pro-gay lobby has been voracious for quite some time now. This bill, to my mind is a reaction – perhaps an over-reaction – but a reaction nonetheless to this lobby. Going by the oft-repeated logic by the dissenters, gay marriage is the least of our problems in Nigeria – corruption and reliable electricity supply are the more pressing problems and these should have occupied the attention of legislature and the executive. Arguing like this is very unhelpful since it is tantamount to saying that all other pursuits of government must be put on hold because we have not yet killed corruption or attained constant electricity? Nothing else should matter, just these two. Arguments like this ignore the multidimensionality of governance and the possibility for a government to pursue multiple targets at the same time.

And it’s quite appalling reading misrepresentations like “14 years in prison for being gay in Nigeria!” Gosh, and from those who should know better that the jail term is not for being gay, but for contracting a same-sex “marriage”. Google is your friend, use it – the bill is here, download and read it.

Let me emphasize that not everything that has an emotional appeal is right, or culturally suitable or biologically proper or in consonance with social norms. And the spirit of all laws derives from the meeting point between these influences from culture, biology and social norms. Wisdom, they say is a bag, let each person carry his own.

Nwachukwu Egbunike is a writer, he authored “Dyed Thoughts: A Conversation In and From My Country” and he blogs at http://www.feathersproject.wordpress.com/

The Anti-Gay Marriage Bill: The Unpleasant Answers

 

By Ikenna Okonkwo

President Goodluck Jonathan recently gave his assent to the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, 2013 [SSMPA] – which had been passed by the legislature as far back as November 2011. The bill has been met with either overwhelming praise or disappointment depending on where you stand. Nonetheless, as both sides have been advancing apologies to protect their stand, I have observed a number fallacies that I wish to refute here.

Going by the conversations, comments, blog posts and editorials in the past week, since the law was passed, I noticed that the critiques of the SSMPA hinge their opposition to this law on certain fundamental assumptions. In many cases, their defence was presented with a “take it or leave it” attitude.  This unfortunately, portrays anyone with a contrary view as a hypocrite, bigot, illiterate or lunatic. On the side of the divide, some supporters of the SSMPA hinge their praise on a poor foundation. Some simply regurgitate religious precepts that are neither properly explained nor understood. Others make an appeal to culture and customs or simply that we are just not ready for such a seismic shift as accepting homosexuality.

Consequently, this piece aims at tackling the assumptions made by the pro-gay rights advocates and in the process base the argument against on the firmer grounds on which religious precepts and most customs are knowingly or unknowingly based.

Tolerance

The first assumption to deal with is the understanding of the concept of tolerance. At the centre of most arguments on homosexuality and gay rights is the differing understanding of what it means to tolerate. There is a clash between the classical and what I would call the contemporary understanding of tolerance.

In the classic understanding, tolerance is based on the assertion that in the matter at hand there is an objective truth. Hence if I am going to tolerate someone, I first assert that I am right and the other person is wrong. I also assert that the other person is wrong in something that isn’t trivial, but something that actually matters. What I therefore tolerate is the person and not his view or idea. This means that in spite of asserting that the other person is wrong, I still respect him as a human being and do not deny him his rights as a person. It also means that I also afford him the right to argue his case in public, allowing for civil debate.

In the contemporary understanding of tolerance, to assert that one’s view is right or true and the other persons view is false or wrong is intolerant in itself. This view is based on an idea that truth, especially moral truth, is relative to the individual or to the cultural circumstance (moral relativism). Apart from the fact that moral relativism is self-refuting this idea of tolerance actually stifles debate and leads to intolerance of dissent as absolute objective assertions are struck out as intolerant.

Natural vs. Unnatural

Fundamental to the pro-gay rights viewpoint is the assertion that homosexuality is a natural and normal phenomena that we have to come to terms with. The evidence put forward for this among others is that, for many people, these tendencies are not voluntarily cultivated; that homosexual behaviour has been observed in diverse cultures throughout human history; or that homosexual behaviour has been observed in other animals (1,500 species according to one study).

These arguments show an erroneous understanding of what it means to be natural. What is natural is not the same thing as what happens or as what normally happens. When we talk about nature, we answer the question of what a particular thing IS and what a particular this IS FOR. The question of whether homosexual attraction is natural is therefore determined by what human sexuality IS and IS FOR in the first place.

On the biological level it is clear that physiologically and morphologically the sexual organs are designed for the purpose of generation of offspring. On the human level ( we see that human sexuality has the added characteristic of the difference and complementarity of the man and woman necessary for uniting them and the proper upbringing of the children that sexuality is ordered towards. Homosexual tendencies and attractions are therefore unnatural and disordered as they are unable both biologically and on the human level to achieve the purpose of human sexuality. Even though those tendencies may be innate, voluntary or involuntary, even though they may be common among people or found in other animals, by the mere fact of being contrary to the purpose of human sexuality they are therefore disordered with sexual acts stemming from those tendencies wrong. Take blindness for example. Some people are born blind, some were made blind by accident or by carelessness or by others. Blindness has been with us throughout history and in different cultures. Many other animals have blind individuals. Does that make blindness natural?

Human Rights

That leads me to the question of rights. Gay advocacy is typically presented as granting rights to gay people just as every other human beings. The question is: what are human rights? Since being human is not defined as being of a certain race, or having a particular sexual orientation, gays have the same human rights as every other person. A right that has to be defended. The wording of some parts of the current anti-gay marriage bill actually give reasons to worry whether the human rights of gay persons concerned will not be encroached upon. And given the sad state of law enforcement in Nigeria those fears are legitimate. But again we are referring to rights for gays not because they are gay, but because they are PEOPLE.

The concept of rights also implies certain duties. That I have certain human rights also implies that I have the duty to respect the rights of other persons, whether or not we are the same or different. Not being willing (as a criminal) or not being able (as someone insane) to carry out those duties would warrant that some of my rights be curtailed by a legitimate authority. There are also other rights which are given to certain persons by virtue of being able or being charged to carry out certain duties. Persons in authority have certain rights that do not belong to the general public.

Understanding the nature of human sexuality, it is only logical that only those who can make proper use of sexuality that can be granted certain rights on that basis. Therefore as a same-sex couple cannot perform the duties that flow naturally from human sexuality they do not have the right to the institution of marriage. Going back to the analogy of blindness. Even though a blind man has equal rights with those who can see, he cannot be granted the right to drive a car or control traffic like other people with sight for the mere fact of not being capable of carrying out the duties required by these roles. Thus, denying the blind the right to drive is neither discriminatory nor a limitation of their freedom but merely an act of common sense.

The Fallacy of Labels

Gay rights advocates confuse the issue by convoluting rights that flow from human sexuality with basic human rights. This is manifested in the idea of gay people identifying themselves primarily on the basis of their sexual preference. It is absurd to describe oneself as gay or straight. Every person is first a human being who may have certain tendencies, some of which may be disordered. These tendencies do not define a person and therefore do not determine wjether he  or she deserves human rights or not.  When this fundamental error is made, the denial of marriage or the refusal sanction of homosexual behaviour is then seen a denial of human rights. As Hilary Clinton put it ‘gay rights are human rights’.

A lot can be said and has been said about the law. But one thing is clear. We have to ask the right questions about whether the homosexual conditions are natural or disordered and whether they deserve certain rights on that basis. The answers are there. Though they are unpleasant.

Ikenna Okonkwo is a Geologist and blogs at http://failedrift.wordpress.com

THE BULLY AT THE UNITED NATIONS

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

In the last one week my email box has been abuzz with mails emanating from different commentators condemning the recent order from one Committee that calls itself the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Even commentators on face-book and twitter have been lashing out at this Committee for behaving like a bully. The Committee has ordered the Catholic Church to henceforth desist from opposing unmarried teen sex, teen contraception and teen abortion. In essence, the Committee is saying that children have right under international law to have sex, to use contraceptives and to carry out abortion, and therefore the Catholic Church should henceforth stop teaching otherwise.

I think the main issues calling for determination are not whether teen sex, contraception or abortion is morally or legally justifiable or not: the main issues for determination are, one: whether or not there is a binding international law permitting teen sex, teen contraception and teen abortion. Second: whether or not the Committee can order the Catholic Church to refrain from teaching against teen sex, teen contraception and teen abortion. Third:  whether or not in making the said order the Committee overstepped its bounds or acted ultra vires its functions.

 The truth of the matter is that there is no binding international law permitting teen sex, contraception or abortion. Instead the consensus reached at the various United Nations Conferences, is that all policies and action programs of the United Nations must conform with the purposes and Charter of the United Nations and must reflect the diverse social, economic and environmental conditions of each country, with full respect for the religious and ethical values, cultural backgrounds and philosophical convictions of the people of each country. Abortion, teen sex and teen contraceptives are abhorred in most cultures and by the Vatican. Besides, the consensus reached at both the International conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in 1994, and the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China in 1995, (Beijing 1995) is that “any measures or changes related to abortion within the health system can only be determined at the national level or local level according to the national legislative process”.

Therefore the promotion of teen sex, teen contraception and teen abortion by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the child is a violation of the ICPD (1994), Beijing (1995), Article 26.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Article 18, 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Articles 5 and 18, 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and, above all, offensive to most cultures. Therefore the recent order made by the aforesaid Committee is illegal, and therefore null and void.

Consequently, the Committee cannot stop the Catholic Church from condemning teen sex, teen contraception and teen abortion. International law binds upon consensus of States, not by force or any form of bullying. In fact, the agreed conclusions at the United Nations conferences are reached by consensus not by any form of bullying. That is why the catchphrase “consensus language” is commonly used at the United Nations Conventions and Conferences. At the moment, no consensus has been reached at any United Nations Conference that teen sex, teen contraceptives or teen abortion should be legalized by all nations. So, why is this Committee resorting to bullying to achieve its unlawful objective?

Teen sexual “rights” contained in the controversial Comprehensive Sexuality Education Syllabus are aimed at promoting promiscuity among children as a “right”; promotion of homosexuality or lesbianism as a “right”; teaching children the various ways of achieving masturbation; teaching children to use condom and other forms of contraceptives. For example, the following are some of the excerpts from the Comprehensive Sexuality Education Syllabus, “masturbation is not harmful”; “both men and women can give or receive sexual pleasure with the partner of the same or opposite sex”.

But as I stated earlier, teen “sexual rights” are in complete break with the ICPD (1994), Beijing (1995), Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and most cultures. Therefore the Committee on the Rights of the child should be dissolved for bringing shame to the United Nations. The United Nations was not founded in 1945 to start corrupting children: It was founded, inter alia, to maintain peace and security and to prevent threat to peace in the world. Paradoxically, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the child is going about threatening peace and corrupting children, our future.

This is very sad. The United Nation’s Declaration on of the Rights of the Child states that “mankind owes the child the best it has to give”. Besides, our common humanity dictates that we should always protect  children, the most vulnerable. In fact, if the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the child truly loves children, it should have been up in arms fighting child prostitution, child pornography child labour, child-soldering and child-sex slavery and sex trafficking. Therefore this Committee should be restrained from acting as a bully and corrupting children.

POP MUSIC LOSES ITS “MUSES”!!!

 

By Chima Ikenganyia

Common sense suggests that something is utterly amiss in today’s celebrated popular music. Gone are the days when popular music was referred to as the language of the soul. Could it be that pop music is losing its art or that art is losing its essence in pop music? Where has all those deep seated elements in good old music gone to? Could it be that this ‘enlightened’ age is about to snuff off the light of music, or that it does not just see that beauty in good music anymore?

Music is art concerned with combining vocal or instrumental sounds for beauty of form or emotional expression, usually according to cultural standards of rhythm, melody, and, harmony. The Greek term from which the word “music” is derived was a generic one, referring to any art or science practiced under the aegis of the muses, which were considered as the source of knowledge that inspired the creation of arts and literature. From the aforesaid, music demands creativity, an outpour of knowledge that should lean on nature, values and morals, no matter the form of expression it takes. Re-echoing the French theorist, Abraham Moles, music must, as an art, obey rules; the rule of aesthetics which is to enumerate universally valid roles, not to perpetuate the arbitrary or merely traditional or popular culture as opposed to meaning.

From historical accounts, it is evident that the power to influence men has always been attributed to music. Its ecstatic potentials have been recognized in all cultures, the ancient Greek, Roman, Chinese, and Persian philosophers have great attribute to music. According to Confucius (551–479 BC), ‘great music should be in harmony with the universe, restoring order to the physical world through that harmony’. He saw music, as a true mirror of character, which makes pretence or deception impossible. Confucius also assigned an important place to music in the service of a well-ordered moral universe. Plato (428–348/347 BC), like Confucius, looked on music as a department of ethics. He saw a correspondence between the character of a man and the music that represents him. Even African traditional cultures which is warmly preserved and exhibited in music through folk songs (moon-light tales and dirges) affirms such proposition by Confucius and Plato.

There is a huge gap between what music has been historically, and what it should be in the contemporary time. A glance at important element of a good music shows not only rhythm, harmony, melody, structure and form but the text/lyrics as well. In recent pop songs undue importance have been placed on the rhythm, harmony, melody, structure and form (which is normally regarded as the ‘beat’ of a song), and this has resulted to the prevalence of plenitude of music with low intellectual, moral, and even decadent lyrics. It is common now, that for any music record to be a success there could be either a vulgar content or an immoral display, which is total deviation from what music should be. Even, live performances, which are the physical expression of music an art, have been turned to a mere tool for promoting a record label.

The most troublesome problem not only for the untutored listener but also for the professional musician has been, in this contemporary times, the loss of the main purpose of art. The principal focus of arts is to imitate the nature of man and the universe, and not merely to depict the unnatural attribute of man. It is an offense to nature to perceive music as only ‘fun’, while in reality it transcends to more noble aspirations of man.

There is a need to revive the real essence of art that is lost in recent pop songs, because this present generation has the responsibility of rejuvenating the sound intellectual, moral, and aesthetic heritage which it acquired in the past and build upon such structure. And posterity will never forgive us if we consciously terminate this nexus that unites us with our past.

Chima Ikenganyia wrote from University of Ibadan Faculty of Law, and can be reached at Chimaobi.ikenganyia@hotmail.com