adminTafara Shumba
MOST of bona fide Christians are currently preaching about the second coming of Jesus Christ, which they reckon, is now on the horizon. Their conviction is premised on the signs that the Bible stipulates as the harbinger to Jesus’ advent.
True to their faith, this world is coming to an end. What is happening around the globe is indeed a testimony that God is about to put a full stop to the depraved universe. Wars are ravaging the world and so are earthquakes, famines and pestilences, among other signs.
The Bible says: “fearful events” will happen. Indeed fearful events are taking place.
Immorality has ballooned to unprecedented magnitude.
Against the backdrop that science, nature and the Bible condemn homosexuality, some countries are legalising the diabolic act.
Last Monday, there was sad and unusual news from Africa after Mozambique decriminalised homosexuality.
That came hard on the heels of another bizarre ruling in the US Supreme Court in which same sex marriage was legalised.
Hundreds of thousands of people had the nerve to attend the annual Gay Pride march to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling in New York.
Mozambique was inundated with accolades from the gays and lesbians across the globe for legalising the vice.
Prominent homosexual groups described Mozambique as “a shining light on an otherwise dark continent”.
There is a strange celebration of vice on this planet earth.
Commenting on what transpired in Mozambique, one gay said: “Congratulations to the government of Mozambique, welcome to the 21st century.”
The other gay responded, “Congratulations indeed, but I think they have finally made it to the 20th century, one more to go.”
With the appalling legalisation of homosexuality, Mozambique is still said to be in the 20th century and still has “one more to go”.
One wonders what it is really that Mozambique is still to accomplish. Hopefully, they are not referring to Satanism.
Civilisation is beginning to be measured by the level one embraces such abominable vices as homosexuality. It will be interesting to know the status of the countries that are already in the 21st century.
If Mozambique is in the 20th century, then Zimbabwe is probably in the 17th century and it will remain solid on that issue as long as Zanu-PF and its God-fearing leader are still at the helm.
President Mugabe is on record ridiculing homosexuals whom he branded as worse than pigs and dogs.
Indeed, pigs and dogs are not sex blind.
For that reason, President Mugabe has drawn the ire of the West. This is the reason why the US President Barrack Obama will not be meeting President Mugabe on his official visit to the African Union despite the later being the chairperson of the bloc.
This explains why President Mugabe has prevailed this long.
It is God’s plan to have such men in Africa who stand for Godly ethics.
Even if all nations compromise on homosexuality, Zimbabwe will not. After all, the road to heaven is believed to be narrow.
President Mugabe has recently commended that even Satan himself was not gay for he chose to approach Eve not Abraham. Indeed, we are sinning more than the source of sin itself.
The West believes outlawing homosexuality is tantamount to violating human rights.
It is important to understand that some of these rights also infringe on the rights of others and as such, they must not be upheld.
Even Pope Francis noted that same sex-marriage violates a child’s right to a mother and a father.
“Gay marriage discriminates against children, in advance, depriving them of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God.
“At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts and the very survival of the human family which he defined as father, mother and their children,” said Pope Francis.
Zimbabwe will be one country that will remain standing against that detestable practice.
Zimbabwe’s Constitution proscribes the practice but in a very equivocal manner. It is high time that constitutional amendments are effected on section 78(3) of the Constitution that only states, “Persons of the same sex are prohibited from marrying each other.”
This section stands accused of using vague, ambiguous and open-ended language that is subject to manipulation.
Gays can argue that the Constitution only outlaws same sex marriage but not same sex relationships. With this ambiguity, homosexuality is subtly entrenched in the Constitution.
It is known that some stakeholders in the constitution-making process, who attempted to smuggle homosexuality in the charter, brought about this ambivalence.
It is heart-rending that Mozambique has reduced the number of countries that outlaw homosexuality to 78.
The former Portugal colony joins 20 other countries in Africa that either allow homosexuality or do not legislate against it.
However, consolation comes from the fact that Africa still has 33 of its majority nations, which still have laws that allow the jailing of gays.
In Mauritania, Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia, homosexuality actually attracts a death penalty. The Pardon and Amnesty law of Ethiopia was recently amended and now deem homosexuality as a criminal assault that can no longer be pardoned alongside terrorism.
In 2013, a survey conducted in Maputo, Beira and Nampula found moderate levels of support for the legal recognition of same sex couples. This shows that the pressure to decriminalise same sex marriage did not come from within the country. Even the Mozambican authority used to refuse to register the Lesbian, Gays, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) group called Lambda.
So what prompted the Mozambican government to climb down?
A prominent blogger Dercio Tsendzana was quoted by AFP commenting, “The government instead abides by the external pressures put by some embassies and foreign donors.” What happened in Mozambique is testimony to the old adage, he who pays the piper calls the tune.
According to AFP, the US is the biggest bilateral donor to Mozambique, trading in $382 million worth, mainly in energy and tobacco in 2013. Up until last year, foreign aid paid for over half of Mozambican public expenditure.
A gay rights organisation from the US said, “This is a chance for great reward and education. What if all those who contribute aid to African nations, just redirect a huge of it to Mozambique.”
It is an insult to reward African nations that embrace homosexuality. It is rather better to face persecution while standing for Godly and cultural ethics. Malawi had to overturn a ban on homosexuality after the West, particularly the US, the Sodom of our time threatened to cut aid. Two Malawian men who had been sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2010 after saying they were getting married, were pardoned.
President Obama and other Western countries also threatened Uganda with the reduction in aid after it passed a law that bans homosexuality and stipulates life imprisonment for those found guilty of same-sex marriage.
It is high time Africa refuses aid that comes with devilish strings.
Tafara Shumba is a Harare-based political analyst
Online Reporter