Monday, May 04, 2015

What has the High Court done?

Did the church not warn you that the Harmonised Draft Constitution bore the seeds of evil? Did it not? You were warned and you argued that, "95% of the draft is good. We'll sort out the other 5% after the Referendum." So why are you staring at your feet and scratching the ground with your toes in shame when the Deputy President repeats what you truly feel in your heart? Isn't "gayism" against God, the church, the law and our culture? Isn't it?!

You people were so obsessed with the appointment of the Chief Justice and the former Deputy Chief Justice that you failed to keep an extra beady eye on the judges of the High Court. Now look at what judges Lenaola, Ngugi and Odunga have done. They have set us on the road to the declaration that sections 162, 163 and 165 of the Penal Code are unconstitutional. Yes, those sections. 

I am not a hate-the-sin-not-the-sinner type. When it comes to sin, I believe that on the Day of Judgment you will have ample time to state your case before God. In the here and now, on God's Green Earth, where we have made laws of man to govern us, how those laws are written matters a lot. There are those who will argue that that which is not expressly permitted is not permitted, and I will tell them Godspeed as they attempt to sneak that rule through the High Court. Then there are those who will argue that that which is not expressly permitted is not forbidden. Godspeed to them too. And all those who will find creative permutations of those two rules of interpretations, I tell them too, Godspeed!

The timidity of the High Court will be remedied soon enough. Article 27 expressly prohibits discrimination and provides seventeen examples of the discrimination it prohibits. Among those seventeen examples are not to be found the expressions "sexual orientation", "gayism", "lesbianism", or "homosexuality".  It uses the word "including" at the beginning of the list found in clause (4). That is a problem. The use of the word "including" raises the spectre that the High Court will eventually be forced to apply a rule of interpretation along the lines I have outlined here. Now do you see why you should have rejected the Harmonised Draft Constitution? Do you trust that Lenaola's, Ngugi's or Odunga's colleagues will reverse the trend that the three have began?

You will, of course, fashion arguments along the following lines: God hates it, the church hates it, our culture hates it, and it is against the will (wishes) of the people. What you will fail to do is provide proof that there is a god, even if we acknowledge an "Almighty God" in the Preamble or that that god hates it, you know, gayism, lesbianism, or homosexuality. You will have plenty of data of what your congregants hate. You will probably have an enemy-of-my-enemy moment and argue that our culture and our god are against it. But you will have no persuasive argument about which area of the Constitution supports you. None. (Your plan B will probably involve an amendment, won't it?)

You and I know that they are here, they are queer and they are here to stay. There is no scientific test you can take to identify them among the general population if they are still hiding in their wardrobes. There is no DNA test, blood test, FMRI, CAT scan, X-ray, whatever, that you can take to identify them. They are not a contagion like the Ebola virus. They are not a panic-inducing syndrome like HIV/AIDS. They are not a cancerous tumour that your can destroy with surgery, radiation or chemical therapy. That must be why you are so freaked out about what judges Lenaola, Ngugi and Odunga did.

If, as you posit, they are a secret horde out to destroy what's left of our nation and, as I contend, you cannot identify them, imagine where they might be already. That nice, helpful teacher at your child's school. That nice paediatrician who got your baby over his sniffles last month. That lawyer you hired to help you buy that plot of land in Kitisuru. That "youth" pastor you hired last month who is still waiting for God to show him his ideal partner. They are here. There are queer. They are here to stay. Deal with it.

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