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Cuthbert Mavheko

During a recent post-Cabinet briefing Minister of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Prisca Mupfumira, said the executive had approved the Amendment Bill which, among other things, seeks to repeal and replace the Customary Marriages Act and merge it with the Marriage Act (Chapter 5:11) into a single Act.

“The objectives of the Bill are…the prohibition of same-sex marriages and recognition of the supremacy of the Constitution, which invalidates any law, practice, custom and conduct inconsistent with the Constitution,” said Minister Mupfumira.

The Bill is a severe blow to the gays and lesbians community in Zimbabwe, coming as it does at a time when the community was expecting the Second Republic to reverse the country’s decades-long anti-gay stance and give them more rights, including the right to legally get married. Alas, this has turned out to be foolish optimism.

It is worth noting that it is illegal to be gay in most African countries. These include Uganda, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Swaziland, to mention just a few. In Uganda, for instance, if you are found having a same-sex relationship, you are likely to be incarcerated for up to seven years.

In December 2013, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was passed by Uganda’s Parliament. This lengthened sentences for consensual homosexual sex and extended punishment to those promoting homosexuality. Nigeria also outlaws same-sex relationships. However, the conditions of imprisonment have become wider, and the punishment harsher when Nigeria’s President passed amendments to existing laws in January 2015.

In 2013, the Zimbabwe Constitution was amended to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. This left gays and lesbians in limbo as they have no legal protection from discrimination, violence and harassment and are heavily marginalised in both the legal and social spheres. 

According to a 2018 survey, 50 percent of gay men in Zimbabwe have been physically assaulted and 64 percent have been disowned by their families; 27 percent of lesbians have also reportedly been disowned. Resultantly, many of them now choose to keep their lifestyles a secret.

In the early 90s, former president Mr Robert Mugabe incurred worldwide criticism for speaking out against homosexuality. Upon coming across a stall set up by the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe(GALZ) at the country’s annual International Book Fair held in Harare on August 1, 1995, he lambasted the gays and lesbians community, saying: “I find it extremely outrageous and repugnant to my human conscience that such immoral and repulsive organisations, like those of homosexuals, who offend both against the law of nature and cultural norms espoused by our society, should have any advocates in our midst and elsewhere in the world.”

Mr Mugabe also described gays and lesbians as “worse than pigs and dogs” and during Zimbabwe’s Independence celebrations in 1996. He urged Zimbabweans to arrest and surrender to the police people who paraded themselves as gays and lesbians.

The former president’s comments at the Book Fair were not without justification because Section 11 of the Censorship and Entertainments Control Act provides that no person shall import, print, publish, distribute, or keep for sale any publication which is undesirable. This denotes publication which is indecent, obscene or is offensive or harmful to public morals. It just cannot be over-emphasised that that anti-gay stance resonates with the generality of Zimbabwean people, who hold strong views along the lines of custom, tradition, religion and values.

In the past, the European Union (EU) employed a plethora of strategies to destroy the values that glue Zimbabweans together by calling on African Governments to give gay people “equal rights by decriminalising homosexuality.”

The abuse of alcohol and drugs, which has turned today’s youths into moral imbeciles, is another strategy that the morally-bankrupt West is using in unleashing its regime change agenda endeavours in Zimbabwe. The British used a similar strategy very effectively in Australia when they freely dished out potent alcoholic beverages to the Aborigines in an effort to exterminate them and send them along the path of extinction.

Another strategy involves the use of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to indoctrinate youths so that they not only rubbish the country’s war of liberation, but also view African norms and values as old-fashioned and alien to modern ways of living, which are enshrined in the “democracy” mantra the West preaches vociferously about in Africa.

Let it be said quite frankly that western ideologies and cultures have inflicted immense damage on our God-fearing cultures as Africans, leaving us in a moral and ethical vacuum. The imperialists tell us that it is a violation of human rights for us to prohibit same sex relationships in our own country. The sober truth is that the human right that one has as a man is to marry a woman, not another man.

When our gallant sons and daughters took up arms to wage the armed struggle, they did so to protect the social, political and economic rights of every Zimbabwean, regardless of race, tribe or religion. Over and above this, they willingly laid down their precious lives to protect and safe-guard the moral and ethical values of the nation.They did not give up their lives to legitimise prostitution, witchcraft and homosexuality.

Homosexuality is diabolic to us as Zimbabweans – it is a cancer which corrodes the very moral fabric of our society.Those who promote and peddle it under the guise of defending “human rights” have sinister objectives. They know very well that if they destroy a nation’s moral fabric, the nation is doomed and becomes a sitting duck for Western predators, whose primary objective is to bring the nation down to its knees, thus making it much easier for them to plunder and loot its resources.

Their modus operandi is really simple. They send their pundit-NGOs and the like – all over the world to prepare the ground for the eventual capitalist take-over of targeted countries, especially those in the developing world. They feed the intended victims on a diet of cultural imperialism. Once the victims start singing, ululating and dancing to their tune, it becomes easier to ensnare them into the capitalist web.

It is a tragic misnomer to call homosexuality a human right. If indeed the truth be told without fear or favour, homosexuality is anti-human behaviour; it exists outside the orbit of normal human behaviour and obliterates the entire cultural circle. It destroys our cultural norms and values, our beliefs and even our normal feelings. In the end, it leaves us without an identity as a people.

Lest we forget, during the armed struggle our heroic liberation forces fought to straighten society. They fought to establish a morally-upright society in this country. Prostitution, witchcraft and homosexuality were not part of their vision.

Succumbing to pressure from Western and European countries to legitimise homosexuality would be retrogressive and suicidal to us as a God-fearing nation. As we build the Great Second Republic of Zimbabwe, we must continue to cling, with the tenacity of savannah ticks, to the moral and ethical values of our nation, which bind us together as a unique, sovereign people.

*Cuthbert Mavheko is a freelance journalist based in Bulawayo. He can be contacted via email [email protected]