ANDREW SOLOMON, AYARIGA, GAY RIGHTS

Andrew and John at their wedding. He surely wishes to be a guest at a wedding of this sort in Nkrumah’s Ghana. Can you imagine?

The importance of Andrew Solomon’s opinion shared in the New York Times to me is not about his dismissal of the allegation thrown in by affiliates and cohorts of the NPP that he helped finance the NDC’s re-election campaign, or that he helped push Nana Oye Lithur to be made minister because she is averred to “the rights of everybody, including homosexuals, should be protected,”. Believe it or not I figured all of it was mere speculation or some lame attempt by overzealous opposition party people to make the President look bad. One clear thing though is that the gay discussion largely seemed to have transcended political colorations. That notwithstanding, some of us have to learn that some people will always seek to blame their political opponents over anything and everything including clearly unrelated matters like the change in the weather.

Having read through Andrew Solomon’s opinion with the rather curious title “In bed with Ghana’s President”, a few things worry me. The realization and import of the bold lead paragraph is not one of them (Solomon starts by saying “WHEN my husband-to-be and I” –Andrew is a man, his husband too is a man), neither were the dismissals of the support he was alleged to have offered Mahama.

“Groom, you may now kiss the bride” – Oops! You are both grooms. kiss each other anyways! Can you imagine you, a full bodied man sticking your tongue into the mouth of another man? Aaaaargh! Yes it is disgusting papa!

First Bother

To me, it first of all made a total mockery of the Government of Ghana’s Communication strategy and machinery. I have said it time and again and even ended up earning a coy nickname from some NDC folks who think, I think I know it all. As someone put it ‘The President’s communications machinery is still a joke; different President, different jokers, same jokes’. I found it embarrassing that due to Mahama Ayariga’s seeming laziness and eagerness to hear himself on radio, he goofs in the manner that he did leading to our President having to call his friend of eight years to apologize, and I reckon to promise a retraction, which we saw via a press release on a Sunday. As much as I hate to admit it, Andrew Solomon is a pretty big personality in the US and UK and indeed such other countries where gays are demanding far-reaching rights. It hurts therefore that we should be ridiculed this way. I am already cringing at the embarrasment Ghana will have to endure when the world continues to read ‘On Friday, Feb. 1, the president’s spokesman said that President Mahama didn’t know me. On Saturday, the president called me to apologize. On Sunday, the government issued a statement that Mr. Mahama and I know each other…’ We have succeeded in taking our perennial embarrassment to the global stage.

Should the President have sacked Ayariga? I dont think so. However I hope and I believe he did reprimand him. Really, all Mahama Ayariga was to have done was to speak to the President to ascertain the basic facts, that is, if he had still not read ‘My First Coup D’état’. Part of the problem I have had with government communicators in the past is that they are too eager to grant interviews. It is as though the sound of their own voice on radio or TV gives them so orgasmic feel they can’t resist.

Serious Bother

What bothers me the most about Solomon’s write-up is the suggestion that ‘the Ghanaian administration’ has at some point been pro-gay (my own words) but is singing a different tune now. Solomon writes says that “the situation of gay people in most of Africa is deplorable, and the double talk from the Ghanaian administration has done little to assuage valid concerns.

“Where is Mummy…why do I have two Dads?” – I am curious to know what answers John and Andrew will have.

What the heck is ‘wife-husband’ Andrew Solomon talking about? Why is he accusing our government of double talk? Last I checked President Mills last year rubbished that ‘no gay rights, no aid’ nonsense and the only official comments from President Mahama was what Andrew Solomon quotes from Ayariga; “President Mahama does not subscribe to homosexualism and will not take any step to promote homosexualism in Ghana.” Or did someone from the ‘Ghanaian administration’ go tell Andrew Solomon a different story in chambers?

Nonsense Progress Bother

“In Ghana, the articles that attacked President Mahama for knowing me referenced “the raging national debate on gay and lesbian rights” in Ghana. That there is such a debate — even if it’s a debate about whether to lynch us — is meaningful progress”.

The dude is sure there is progress being made on the gay and lesbian rights issue. Yes true. But I am hoping it won’t be the sort of progress that will have him grin from ear to ear. Hopefully he should grimace and get so upset that his husband will slap him into reality.

The Gay Debate

I was initially upset when we started even ‘minding’ these folks about gays and lesbians. I didn’t think it was necessary. I felt, and still feel that it is a no go area and we should not even conceive the idea of changing that. But I think it is a healthy discussion. Through the discourse all the unnatural folks who want to mistake a sickening societal deviant behavior as a rational, natural one have sought to make it sound as though someone wants to line these “Kojo besias” and lash them like Jerry did to the market women engaged in ‘kalabule’ in the ‘80s.

I think the point has been made that no one is denying any human being living in Ghana has fundamental human rights. But we will not create the way for us to have judges and some hungry pastors put a man and a man through a solemnization ceremony as husband and husband legally married and all that nonsense. What Andrew Solomon and his cohorts want is for us to institute the sort of legislation which makes men and women marry the same sex in some states in the US and across some European countries.

I am sure most of us in Ghana and Africa generally believe that a man marries a woman. Will we accept a man marrying a man? Or a woman marrying a a woman?

Cultural, NOT Legal

That I believe is a NO GO AREA! Do we know of anyone who has been denied basic human rights as a result of what they do in their bedrooms?  Have we said that because someone does some stupid, animalistic sexual gymnastics in their bedrooms they not access health care, education, freedom of expression and all that we hold dear? It is a cultural matter and we don’t subscribe to that. Simple. I want get into the biblical bit but I do know that God created man and then woman. If God had wanted us to have same sex relationships perhaps he would have created Adams and Steve but not Eve.