adminwarm certain parts of the body while revealing others for reasons best known to themselves. Looking at them, one would be forced to think that they were from the West where winters are colder than the sub-Saharan temperatures, unless you heard them speak the native languages.
Though many women from Western countries were dressed in warmer clothes, nothing was out of this world as half-naked (or is it half-clothed) women are seen in town during the night “hunting and gathering”.
The scenario here was, however, different in that some men were also wearing revealing clothes with some looking like people who bath in locked bathrooms only to walk in the Avenues stark naked.
Inside the Harare International Festival of the Arts’ Coca-Cola Green Stage where many people were drinking and making merry, evidence of gay couples and male-females was everywhere.
Close to the stage, was a group who, from afar, looked like women in bright-coloured tight jeans and tight-fitting tops and jackets while a closer look revealed a shocking group of about seven men who were evidently “drag queens” considering the way they were shouting and screaming at the artistes like female groupies. This was a common sight at the Hifa, which ended early last month.
The arts festival, which has become a top brand in Southern Africa and the world at large, was as usual professionally and beautifully planned. Over the years, Hifa has perfected its art in events management as well as polishing habits like gayism to perfection. More and more gays are born and bred, with each passing year.
Gayism, whose prominence and controversy has increased over the years especially since the formation of the Gays and Lesbians Association of Zimbabwe in the early 1990s, has been a thorny issue until the coming of the new Constitution which President Mugabe signed into law on May 22 this year.
According to Section 4.78(3) of the new Constitution, “persons of the same sex are prohibited from marrying each other”. Section 4.78 of the Constitution which deals with marriage rights prohibits same sex marriages, marriages of people under the age of 18 and forced marriages.
In May last year, the people of North Carolina in the United States of America voted to change the state constitution to say that the only valid “domestic legal partnership” in the state is marriage between a man and a woman.
The state had already outlawed gay marriage, but the constitutional amendment makes it more difficult for politicians to ever change the law.
Over the past generations, gays and lesbians have moved from hiding their sexual orientation to publicly displaying the act, a development that has worried many Christians and traditionalists. Gay tolerance has also come with it “gay prostitution”, which some say is the main cause of the increase in the number of young people engaging the gay unions.
Mr George Kandiero, the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers’ Association secretary-general, said gayism does not exist in our culture as Zimbabweans and as Africans saying back in the days anyone caught engaging in such practices would be taken to the traditional courts and would be deemed an outcast in the society.
“Gayism has taken centre stage nowadays because of technology and the different media platforms that are at hand. Young people spend most of their time on the Internet and television watching pornographic videos, some of which feature people sleeping with animals and this has diluted our culture in a big way.
“Many people who have joined this practice usually do it for financial reasons because some of them find it as an easy way of making money.”
Gayism has been associated with money and fashion as many believe that the practice pays well if you find the “right partner” and it is very rare to find gay dressed shabbily, he said.
“Many parents have played a big role in promoting immorality because of the clothes they buy for them. Many a times you find parents buying pink, yellow or purple trousers for boys but what they do not know is that earrings and bright coloured clothing for men usually means something different from just fashion in the Western world.
“That kind of dressing is usually a form of signal to other gays to know the difference between a straight men and a gay. Parents have lost touch with culture and gone are the days when children would be taught on how to dress and conduct themselves in front of elders. Would one go to their rural homes wearing a pink trousers?”
Pastor Amidu Saidi, a senior pastor at Lighthouse Ministries, echoed the same statements and referred to the practice as a violation of God’s creative design in men.
“When God created humans he made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. The Lord told Adam that I am going to give you a helper in the form of Eve not Steve. In the Old
Testament, the Bible refers to men and women as ‘men’ in that women were created as a womb personality to complement men who were created without wombs so as to pro-create,” he said.
“Romans 1 v 27 says; ‘In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.’
“In Genesis 19, the Bible says homosexuality was the main reason why Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. In verses 6-7, the Bible says Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, ‘No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing’.
“To sum it all up, homosexuality degrades human integrity. It is unnatural and is causing us to sway from God’s purpose,” Pastor Saidi said.
However, Hifa spokesperson Mr Tafadzwa Simba dismissed assertions that the arts extravaganza was associated with any deviant behaviour.
He said: “Hifa’s mandate is simply the promotion of the arts and Zimbabwean artistes on an international platform in a Zimbabwean context. Hifa has a fiduciary duty to the Zimbabwean public to run arguably the biggest international event hosted in the capital each year.
“This duty is taken extremely seriously by the festival and the logistics of running a world-class festival to the level of efficiency befitting such an event in Zimbabwe means that Hifa, and any other such organisation, cannot search for individual reasons as to why each individual who attends this public event does so.
“It can only be expected that a large Zimbabwean endeavour such as Hifa would see different opinions from different people who express those opinions with different intentions. It is therefore not possible to empirically comment of subjective opinions which may have been expressed.
“In terms of safety matters, with the ZRP, Hifa’s own safety and security teams as well as other security agencies of the state. Hifa audiences are extremely safe from crime.”
If gayism is prohibited in African cultures, in religions, both Christianity and Islam, where in Zimbabwe is this practice coming from and why is it taking root in our society?
Online Reporter