Legalizing homosexuality is suicidal, why Malawi should say no to gays

'This article is very homophobic but not for real, it was written by Hastings Ndebvu, a classmate, an advocate of freedom but for arguments sake, he took on the role of the homophobe author- i will counter it very soon.'   

I will not talk about religion. I will not talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. I will not cite or quote any scriptures in justifying why homosexuality and same sex marriages are suicidal pills which our nation should not touch, even with a ten-foot pole. After all, I can only competently quote the Bible, if at all I can, if I am to use religion in denouncing homosexuality.  

I would be very naïve to assume that everyone in this country is a believer, our constitution guarantees freedom of religion but clearly states that we are a secular state. Thus, to make my arguments against the legalization of same sex marriages appeal to all and sundry, including the George Thindwa’s of this world, I will desist from making this article a Bible commentary.

It is pleasing to learn that Malawians already seem not to sit down too well with the odd practice of homosexuality. Unlike in the west, where there are known movements and activists specializing in gay rights advocacy, Malawi has no known movement specifically pushing for the legalization of the same. We have never seen people taking to the streets with banners held high demanding the legalization of homosexuality. No Member of Parliament has ever stood up in our august house to move a motion that his constituents have asked the parliamentarian to amend our laws so that they accommodate homosexuality. So I wouldn’t be risking it if I said the West is imposing this practice on us.

But that does not mean that am overlooking the exploits of  Tiwonge Chimbalanga alias Aunt Tiwo, and Steve Monjeza, and other local human rights (not gay rights) activists (many of which are  married heterosexuals). But Aunt Tiwo and company would not amass enough signatures on their petitions to make us believe criminalizing homosexuality is indeed infringing on a tangible section of our population.

But even if they could, in a democratic country like the one we are living in, the majority rules. So if these activists want us to believe that legalizing homosexuality is that important, I dare them to call for a referendum on this issue to let the people of Malawi decide. It would be interesting to hear and see the look on the faces of these activists in the aftermath of a heavy defeat of the idea in the referendum. Am sure they will still say we are infringing on gays. I wouldn’t be surprised. Those are the stunts that butter their breads anyway.

Let us now start checking-in in the outrageous action stations beseted with the journey to the legalization of homosexuality whose destination is condemnation.  

Firstly, it has been proven that homosexuality poses many complications which inevitably shorten the life span of the engaging personalities. This is well documented in  Is Homosexulaity Normal?, by Edward Fields. 

Fields revealed that the life expectancy of homosexuals in the West has dropped to a disappointing 42 years. This is of course a far cry to the median age of death of a married heterosexual man which is 75. He also reveals that the median age for the death of a lesbian is 45, contrary to the median age of death for the heterosexual woman which is a distant 79.

The drop in expectancy for same sex partners has been attributed to the reckless lives that homosexuals and lesbians live in their sexual behavior other behaviors. If these statistics are to be believed, then it means that homosexuality reduces a man’s expectancy by almost 44 percent while a woman who has decided to take up lesbianism automatically reduces her expectancy by 45 percent.

Now, we need not mention that our life expectancy is way below that of our counterparts in the west. According to the latest United Nations country profiles, the life expectancy in Malawi is 56 years for men and 57 for women. We are talking of “normal” married heterosexuals here.

 If Field’s statistics are anything to go by, it means the life expectancy for the Malawian homosexual and lesbian is likely to go down even further. The percentages may not totally tally with those from the west; suffice to say they may be worse. But if expectancies of the Malawian homosexual and lesbian are to reduce by 44 and 55 percent respectively as their counterparts in the west, then it means that life expectancies for  Malawian homosexuals and lesbians will hover somewhere around 31  and 26 years respectively.

Now for a country like ours, still developing and in need of a vibrant workforce to be losing its nationals at such a tender age due to homosexuality is retrogressive. At such ages, most of our men and women in the country are busy pursuing their studies with high hopes of contributing to national development. And the country can ill afford to lose them at that age to same sex orientations.

Some naïve people would argue that death is universal and it shall spare no one. True. But to confront death before one’s destined time is inhuman. And at those projected ages of death government would have spent a lot of resources in trying to make these homos and lesbians responsible and productive citizens. From paying and subsidizing for their education in schools, buying them drugs in our hospitals and subsidizing their agricultural investments.

Surely, the government expects a good return in any citizen when providing for these things and for one to cut short one’s own life deliberately due to homosexuality is tantamount to stealing resources which government would have invested in other meaningful development projects. Such people indeed deserve to be punished.

Legalizing homosexuality is also likely make the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic even difficult for our country. This is due to the approved recklessness of homosexuals and lesbians in their sexual behavior.

One needs not be a rocket scientist to agree that homosexuals are less caring about their commitment and faithfulness to their partners than people in opposite sex sexual relationships or marriages. That is not to say that all opposite sex marriage partners are committed and faithful, no. The point is the promiscuity levels in homosexuals are tenfold higher of people in same sex sexual relationships.

This allegation was also affirmed by medical experts Corey and Holmes, who wrote in Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1980 that the average homosexual has between 20 and 106 partners in a lifetime as compared to the average heterosexual who has a maximum of at least 8 partners in a lifetime.

Homosexuals  risk it. They engage in group sex, most of their sexual encounters occur when they are drunk, or high on drugs. In Is Homosexuality Normal?, Fields says that 41 percent of homosexuals in the United States admitted to having  sex with fellow homosexual strangers in public restrooms, 60 percent said they have had sex with strangers in bathhouses and 64 percent of  these encounters have involved the use of illegal drugs. To cap it , a research conducted by the Catholic Apologetics International in 2005 revealed that  homosexuality accounted for over 50 percent of  all AIDS cases in the United States of America despite the fact that  homosexuals account for only 1 to 2 percent of the country’s whole population.

Now, at that rate of promiscuity and prevalence rate, one wonders what legalizing homosexuality will mean in the fight against the pandemic in Malawi. With these statistics in mind, imagine how the prevalence rate will soar, how many vibrant brothers we will commit six feet deep and how much money our already broke government will be spending in providing free Anti- Retroviral Therapy Drugs. Surely as a country we can ill afford to give away all we have fought for in mitigating the pandemic and go back to square one because of legalizing homosexuality.

We also need to seriously think of the safety of our boys in the event of   homosexuality legalization. Imagine the relationship of a homosexual primary or secondary school teacher and his learners. Surely the learners would be easy prey.

Research worldwide has confirmed that children are the worst victims of homosexuality. In 2005, the Los Angeles Police, through its officer Captain William Riddle said over 30, 000 sexually abused children in the city were victims of homosexuals. This is in consistence with what gay activists Karla Jay, an English professor and Journalists Allan Young also said in their book The Gay Report, published in 1970 that 73 percent of all homosexuals have had sex with boys under the age of 19 and that Homosexuals commit more than 33 percent of all molestations in the United States.

These statistics attest to the magnitude of the threat that legalizing homosexuality, would pose to our children. We are a country already struggling to contain other form of child rights abuses such as trafficking and child labor and the last thing we would add on our shop list is the legalization of a practice more likely to escalate the abuses the rights of our innocent children.

And if our children are to embrace this behavior, what kind of a nation shall we become? One infested with homosexuals? I can bet my house on such a nation, still developing like ours not achieving meaningful development.

It is not the children only who would be left holding the wrong end of the homosexuality.  Studies and experiences in homosexuality legalized countries confirm that our villages, societies and cities are likely to experience increased cases of violence because of homosexuals.

The then Chief Magistrate of the New York City Criminal Court Judge John Martaugh said in 2004 that homosexuality account for half the murders in America’s large cities. It is also not by coincidence that over 50 percent of women on death row, according to the Lesbian News, are violent inspired convicted lesbians.

 These statistics point to the obvious. That something is unnatural with homosexuality and homosexuals. Why do homosexuals have a shorter life span than heterosexuals? Why do most  of them rely on alcoholism and drugs to have sex? Why are they often associated with violence?

Perhaps these are the questions that force many medical experts and psychiatrics to regard homosexuality and lesbianism as a form of a mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) only removed the practice as a mental disorder in the early 70’s after marching homosexuals stormed the Association’s annual conference offices for a number of successive years to force the association to scrap the condition as on mental disorder symptoms list.

Despite the removal, a majority of psychiatrics still feel homosexuality is unnatural and that people engaging in the practice have some forms of personal problems. American sexuality expert Lief says in his 2009 survey, Current Thinking on Homosexuality, that 73 percent of psychiatrics believe that homosexuals are less happy than the homosexual is a lesser jolly person. Probably this explains the findings of author Jerry Kaifetz who stated in his paper, Homosexual Rights Are Concern for Some, which he published in the Post –Tribune in 1992, that 50 percent of all suicides cases in the United States are attributed to homosexuality.

In light of these statistics and evidences we can hardly ask for more proof that homosexuality is evil and should not be condoned with or without the presence of donor aid. It is evil, unnatural and unwanted in Malawi. It is better to grow grey hairs in a poverty stricken house than die in infancy in a rich but evil abode. 

This article, the first of two is just for arguments sake. My Friend Hastings NDebvu will argue why Gays should stay illegal in Malawi and i will counter in the following article. Hastings is not homophobic, he actually wanted to write on the legalization but then we could have not argued...