Be prejudicial, if you have to, but avoid allowing your prejudices to blot the lives of those who wish to follow their own sexual orientation.
"There was no violation of rights or the law, Mombasa high court judge Mathew Emukule said on Thursday. “I find no violation of human dignity, right to privacy and right to freedom of the petitioners,” he said.
The above is from an article in a British newspaper, The Guardian, dated 16/06/2016.
The article was commenting on the reaction of sane people to Kenya's High Court deciding that the Kenyan state is not violating people's human rights and dignity, when its operatives compel them to subject themselves to having a stranger examining, to put it bluntly, their asses and genitalia, to ascertain whether or not they are Gay, or, otherwise to determinate their sexual orientation.
My first reaction to what is being reported was shock; I was aghast that any reasonable person, never mind a judge, who, one presumes, is expected to combine judicious principles with a sound legal mind, would conclude that such intimate and invasive infringement of a person's body and mind, would not constitute a violation of their integrity.
My next reaction was to become suspicious about the motives of any High Court Judge, in this case, Mr Emukule, who would make such an apparently flawed ruling. And, so it was that I began to ask myself, Who is this Judge, and what might be his apparent motive for making such a ruling? Is he an homophobic person, and, if so, is it the case that he could not keep his personal likes and dislikes about GLBT people out of his deliberations? What are his politics? Could it be that his verdict has been weighted by some deference towards the actual or perceived policy of the Kenyan Government towards gay and lesbian people?
And what have I concluded? Well, based on the fact that Kenya, like many other countries on the African continent, which are, in their outlook, predominantly rural, religious, tribal, and, yes, rather backward in their take on human rights and personal freedom matters, I have come to the conclusion that the Kenyan Government, including its judiciary, is a reflection of the prejudices and backward looking views of the majority of the Kenyan people. And that the verdict of Judge Matthew Emkule was most probably based on homophobic prejudices and loyalty to the Kenyan Government, than on objective principles of justice. Accordingly, the verdict was a further affirmation that, as it does in Uganda and other less enlightened African countries, 'homophobia rules.'
It is a shameful verdict, not least because it reflects the poor state of this Judge's practice of jurisprudence. It would be very revealing to see what would be the outcome of this case being appealed to the Kenyan Supreme Court. Is there an Inter-African Court; which complements the African Union? If not, there might need to be one established, if countries on the African continent are to realise the vast improvements which can be made in realising Africa's economic, political, judicial and social advancement.
Let each person have the freedom to follow the path they have been fated to follow, when they do so without injury to you.
It really is the case that economic and social advancement of nations are fuelled by their political and spiritual enlightenment. If men want to have other men as their lovers and partners, and women want to do the same, this is not really a threat to human society, and hetrosexual people and the religious establishments, whether it be Christianity or Islam, et al, should stop feeling threatened and persue a live and let others live the lives they want to and/or have been fated to live, while they are not harming anybody.
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