David Mark and his anti-gay crusaders

Posted by admin Headlines Sunday, February 3rd, 2013

I understand distinguished Senator David Mark, the President of the
Senate of the Federal Republic, is a very pious man. I don’t know
Mr. Mark personally, but those who know him say the retired general
is one person who pursues his cause with the zeal of a soldier. It
was this zeal that he brought to bear as minister of communications
in the regime of the “Evil Genius”, General Ibrahim Babangida, by
making sure that the “ordinary people” did not have access to
telephone and upbraiding university students for protesting fuel
price increase when many of them didn’t have cars.

When Mark wanted to run for president a few years ago, he granted
an interview in which he declared: “If I have my way, I will say
whoever does not have a military background should not be made
president,” noting that “civilians don’t have the requisite training”.
According to Mark, even journalists should undergo military training
because, “It gives you the confidence that you need and makes you
to be everything”. He went on: “I can tell you that a staff sergeant in
the army is better than a university graduate in this country. That is
the truth. If you give me a graduate and a staff sergeant, I will pick
the sergeant because I can train the sergeant”. The point Mark was
trying to make was that nobody should deny him the opportunity to
rule Nigeria simply because he was once a soldier.

Mark has since made his mark (no pun intended) on our democratic
landscape. He has been a senator since the return to democracy in
1999. He is in his second term as senate president, the first and
only senator to achieve this feat in the 4th Republic. He was one of
the senators who supported the bill that sought to give President
Obasanjo a third term in office. He was one of the few officers
alleged to have played a prominent role in the annulment of the
June 12, 1993, presidential election. And the way he is going, Mark
may yet fulfill his ambition of being the president and commander-in-
chief.

Mark’s latest pet project is his crusade against gays and lesbians,
that extraterrestrial, subhuman group that has descended on our
great country and seeks to pervert our collective morality. Some
people have argued that if Mark and his colleagues could expend a
quarter of the time and energy they are expending hounding gays
and lesbians, the country might be a safer and more prosperous
place for her citizens. But that is beside the point. We all know the
upper chamber of the National Assembly is nothing more than a
retirement home for public officers who have lost their immunity.
As a devout and morally upright Christian who aspires to be a Knight
of the Catholic Church someday, I can understand Mark’s antipathy
toward gays and lesbians. But to allow that to becloud his legislative
judgment in a supposedly secular nation like ours, is to say the
least, troubling. Unfortunately, that is exactly what he is doing by
championing the anti-gay movement in the senate. During his latest
outing at a civic reception in honour of John Cardinal Olorunfemi
Onaiyekan in Abuja, Mark said “The need to nurture and preserve
sanity, morality and humanity in our nation informed the decision of
the Nigerian Senate to legislate against same-sex marriage and
homosexuality”.

It is important to read Mark’s statement clearly. The issue is not just
opposition to same-sex marriage, but to homosexuality as well. This
clarification is important because, among other things, the
criminalization of same-sex marriage which attracts 14 years
imprisonment will equally be applicable to anybody that engages in
homosexual acts if Mark’s fantasy becomes law.

“We will not compromise on this. I want to invite you all to join the
crusade of decency in our society. There are many good values we
can copy from other societies but certainly not this one (same-sex
marriage),” Mark implored his audience. “We have to prove to the
rest of the world, who are advocates of this unnatural way that we
Nigerians promote and respect sanity, morality and humanity.”
It was perhaps in keeping with Mark’s injunction to prove to the rest
of the world that Nigerians “promote and respect sanity, morality and
humanity” that a few weeks ago, as reported by Steve Aborisade of
Nigeriahivinfo.com (http://www.chidoonumah.
com/2013/01/homophobia-in-nigeria-3-men-in-danger.
html#axzz2J2IjxYF9), anti-gay crusaders apprehended three men in
Ekwe, Njaba Local Government Area of Imo State, South-east,
Nigeria. Their offence? Engaging in homosexual acts! The men were
paraded naked, bound like farm animals. We can only imagine the
fate of these men; citizens have been lynched or burnt to death for
lesser crimes.

That is the face of the new Nigeria of moral warriors that Mark
envisages. But really, what haven’t we compromised as a nation?
We have compromised on corruption. We have compromised on
probity and accountability. We have compromised on freedom,
human rights, and the rule of law. Indeed, we have compromised on
all the ethical standards that make a modern nation function. But
those things don’t concern us. We only need to weed our society of
these sexual deviants who are polluting us with their foreign way of
life.

There are a few issues arising from the gay bashing that has
become not only fashionable, but a comfortable distraction and a
uniting topic between the ruling class and a section of the people
they oppress. One is that homosexuality is foreign to our culture and
that it was brought to us and is being promoted by Europeans and
Americans. The other is that it is against religious doctrines. But
homosexuality is not a white man’s “disease”. Homosexuals are
found in every society in the world, including ours.

One of the most insightful articles I have read on this debate is that
by Wole Soyinka. In the piece, The Sexual Minority and Legislative
Zealotry (http://www.chidoonumah.com/2012/12/the-sexual-minority-
and-legislative.html#axzz2J2IjxYF9), the Nobel Laureate takes our
legislative zealots and religious bigots to task on their fear
mongering and distaste for science. It is a piece worth reading for
anyone interested in understanding the anti-gay hysteria in
Nigeria.

On the issue of “foreign interference”, Soyinka had this to say: “The
noisome emissions that surged from a handful of foreign
governments last year should not be permitted to obscure the
fundamental issue of the right to private choices of the free, adult
citizen in any land – Asian, African, European, etc. Those external
responses were of such a nature – hysterical, hypocritical and
disproportionate – that, speaking for myself at least, I could only
wonder if they had not been generated by a desperate need for
distraction away from the economic crisis that confronted, at that
very time, those parts of the world”.

Now that we have laid the incubus of “foreign interference” to rest,
perhaps we can address the other issues that rile our anti-gay
crusaders. Some of those who attack gays and lesbians say
homosexuality is “abnormal” and “unnatural”. Others have gone a
step further to query why the West that opposes polygamy supports
homosexuality. This, of course, is a faulty analogy. We can have the
debate about same-sex marriage, just like polygamy, but to
criminalize homosexuality is the height of “legislative zealotry”.
The debate on polygamy and same-sex marriage would also fall
within the realm of the debate on whether a 50-year old senator can
marry a thirteen-year old. Of all the issues above, same-sex
marriage, in my view, is the least upsetting. I have yet to see how
same-sex marriage affects the rights of citizens or is a threat to
society as do polygamy and paedophilia.

We all know where science stands on the issue of homosexuality. It
does appear, therefore, that beyond the religious argument, there
has not been any “persuasive” argument put forward by
homophobes. But we can’t give in to the religious argument for
obvious reasons. Nigeria is a secular state. The other reason is that
it is a very slippery slope. If we hound homosexuals on the basis of
religion, then we create room for other religious bigots who have
made our country a living hell in their purported attempt to propitiate
heaven.

Caution is the word, Mr. Mark. All the balderdash that homosexuality
is not in our culture, is simply that: balderdash. The bottom line is
that we are dealing with a relationship between two consenting
adults. What crime has been committed? The crime of falling in love?

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community
does not pose a national security threat. Rather, those we need to
wage a war against are bigots, whether they be religious, ethnic or
sexual.

If we allow Mark and his colleagues to legislate on what adults do in
their bedrooms, they may one day begin to think of legislating on
what a woman, for example, does to her body.

conumah@hotmail.com
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