On Gayness, and Gay Rights ….in Kenya

(Do gay people have less rights? Are gay people oppressed by society - by being denied the right to marry?)

Normally when issues like these come up, I normally ignore them. This is because most of the time they are just petty tantrums of some attentions seeking, “emotionally undeveloped” individuals. But this issue appears to be different. The Gay community is very organized, has money, and appears to be moving based on a well thought out strategy. At the same time Kenyans seem to be systematically resisting the push from the gay community; a clash is inevitable, and a discussion must be had before war breaks out.

The issue of gayness and gay rights is not going away. We must deal with it squarely, put out a decision in the law books and enforce it. It is the only way to ensure peace and continued focused progress in society. We don’t want a long protracted open argument that leads to a lot of wastage of time, lives and energy. Especially not in Kenya, where the vast majority of the populations are still living in very serious poverty. It is time for some peaceful, honest discussion.

Here goes …

Let me just start by clearly stating that I am a human. And as such I have my personal opinions that color my thoughts and choices. So, before I go far I would like to share with you all my relevant opinions so that you may understand where I come from with the argument that I put forward thereafter:

1.       I believe in individual rights; the rights of the individual must always be respected. A society that puts down individuals for the sake of the masses, is a society that is killing itself – a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. THE INDIVIDUAL IS KING.

2.       I believe in private property and the right of the individual to use his property in whatever way he sees fit. My house is not a communal house; people must knock at the door, and I have the right to choose who I let in and who I keep out. I also have the right to engage in my activities inside my house (and other private property) without outside interference. I should be able to have anal sex in my living room without my neighbor making noise about it. PRIVATE PROPERTY IS THE PROPERTY OF THE KING.

3.       I believe in contracts; two adults of sound mind should be allowed to be able to put together a contract that enables them to work together with proper understanding and guidelines. People should be able to make promises, and they should be held accountable when they don’t follow through – relationships must be built on trust and accountability. CONTRACTS ARE AGREEMENTS BETWEEN KINGS.

4.       I believe in working together (forming a society/community/ country); the individual is the ultimate authority (as per my belief numbered “1”), but the truth of the matter is that the individual has limited powers over nature – he only has two hands, two legs, two eyes, one brain et c. and he can only be in one place at a time. And the biggest limitation of all is that individuals DIE. In light of this, I believe in the power of society to plug these limitations of the individual. The society exists to enable individuals extend their reach; be in more places at the same time and do more things (through specialization), and live for millions of years (through procreation with other individuals). SOCIETIES ARE KINGS WORKING TOGETHER TO BUILD SOMETHING “BIGGER” AND LONG LASTING.

I know there is something you, my dear reader, is already telling yourself – exceptions. Surely there are exceptions? The answer is YES THERE ARE. And they go something like this:

 

1.       Individual rights have completely no exceptions. The individual is KING! - Until he starts to mess with other people rights (THE RIGHTS OF OTHER KINGS). An individual’s rights should only be cut down if that individual is messing with the rights of other individuals. This is because such behaviors leads to war and anarchy, which then leads to a situation where no individual can enjoy any of his rights. So the people who instigate war situations are enemies of everyone, and must be stopped. An individual who doesn’t respect other people’s rights is an enemy of everyone, and people should gang up (using society’s legal system) against such entities.

2.       Private property cannot be used to violate the rights of other people, or prevent other people from achieving their objectives. A man cannot be allowed to have sex with underage girls in his bedroom, even if said girl has consented. The parents of the girl have the right to interfere with this man. Also a man should not be allowed to have sex with sheep or chicken in his house – that is cruelty to animals (a discussion for another day).

3.       Contracts can only be made by two adults of sound mind. Also contracts cannot be made by two people in the pursuit of trampling on other people’s rights – such a contract should be void, and should not be respected.

4.       The society is only important in so far as it helps individuals advance their peaceful agendas. When the society starts to oppress individuals, then the society has lost relevance and it is time for it to be reconfigured by the individuals.

Please note that I am writing this down in one sitting, and in response to a post I saw on Facebook regarding the issue of gay marriages in Kenya. As such I didn’t have the pleasure of thinking about it for too long, otherwise I may have come up with a better “founding premise”. If there are any fallacies in my premises, please point them out (in peace).

Also note that I have no legal background, and I have never read any book about law. So lawyers out there, you may correct me if my founding theories are fundamentally wrong.

On religion and the religious argument …

I also believe in freedom of “religion”, technically. The details of this belief I can discuss later, but the summary of it goes something like this: no single religion can disprove the validity of another/ other religions, so we have a stalemate.

As we proceed I would like to invite all of you to temporarily use purely your brains and the power of logic to reason this out. Let’s not bring gods into this. Because truth be told, neither God nor The Devil are personally available for consultation on this matter. And we as a society must deal with the situation squarely, because so far it seems that it is not going away by itself.

I say this because both The Bible and The Quran (the two biggest religions in Kenya) are firmly against equal rights. Yes, that’s true. In case you didn’t know, they state that women are inferior to men in every conceivable way. But we as Kenyans with our limited intelligence saw it fit to declare that all people have equal right and every individual is equally important (there are no “chosen” people).

People of all tribes, of all races (even descendants of former “white” colonists), all genders (even gays and mixed sex) are all equal. Doesn’t matter if a person worships a cow, a statue, or an invisible “vapor” entity; all Kenyans are equal and have equal rights. Even people with physical disability, or even mental disability – all are equally important.

Now let’s get down to business; Gay Rights …

1.       Equal Rights (The individual is King)

 As I stated earlier, the individual is king. And so his/ her will must always be respected. And true to this ideal, the Kenyan law clearly states that everyone is equal. No gay person, no single one, can claim that they are granted less rights than any other individual in the society. The law even goes further and criminalizes discrimination and oppression of individuals – it is illegal to discriminate, and it is punishable.

Many gay people may want to debate this, but let me put it this way: “black” people were discriminated against in many countries, most prominently U.S.A and South Africa. Black people were denied employment, education, access to public facilities, ET c. They were even subjected to indiscriminate and extrajudicial proceedings and punishments (read killings). They couldn’t vote, and were generally just considered advanced monkeys.

That kind of situation is not true for gay people in Kenya. Gays vote, enter any building they want, hold public office, get employed in any job, ET c. Gay people HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS. Gays are NOT oppressed in Kenya.

So what am saying here is; any argument that states that gay people are seeking some form of equality would be totally fallacious and misleading. This issue has no “equality” dimension. That is already granted by the law.

Self-imposed DISCRIMINATION: I have lived in Kenya for nearly 3 decades (since I was born). During that time, no one (I mean no one) has ever asked me about my sexual orientation. Ever. And I KNOW this is true of everybody. But gay people like to stand on roof tops and declare “I AM GAY, SO DEAL WITH IT!!!”

That’s not very nice!!! It is like the gay people are begging the Kenyans to group them into one little corner and impose special rule on them. Why would they do that?!!

In fact, seeing as I am “straight”, if a man were to walk up to me and tell me he was gay I would immediately put my defenses up – lest he start hitting on me. And this is not discrimination, it is just reality. Ask any beautiful woman who is trying to separate professional and sexual life at work, and they will tell you they struggle with this issue ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. It is not that the woman is discriminating against the men she acts cold towards, she just doesn’t want to talk about getting fucked while she is at work!!! (Excuse my “French”, from here on there will be more coming – so prepare yourself!).

Gay people create the very conditions that come back to bite them. If they continue like this we will soon have to declare our sexual orientation in every single application that we fill. And that would be a very big step backwards for “the rights of the Kings”.

2.       Private Property (The property of the Kings)

 

I might be wrong on this, any lawyer out there can correct me. But as far as I know policemen in Kenya cannot enter a person’s house based on a report that they were having blowjobs, anal sex, or using sex toys.

The laws of Kenya are very respectful of private property. Kenya is in fact a capitalist country, which basically mean Kenya subscribes to the ideal that “the individual is King”.

Gay people cannot claim any downside here either. They can practice their gayness to their hearts content, and the vast majority of Kenyans would never bother with them.

3.       Contracts (Agreements between Kings)

Gay people, like anyone else, can enter into and get out of agreements. Any agreement (allowed by the laws - for everybody).

A gay person can form a company with a fellow gay person, or even with non-gay people, then move assets to that company, and even prescribe obligations and duties of all the partners. I say this because gay people seem to think they can’t co-own things with each other. That is a LIE.

Two gay people can in fact stay together, form a partnership, write a partnership deed, transfer assets to that partnership, and LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. If either one of them dies, the assets will be treated in accordance with the agreement in the partnership deed.

Marriage: Now I know at this point gay people are saying “partnership is NOT marriage!!!” Well, they would be right. Marriage is the ONE contract that I know of that the parties involved have no say in the contents of the agreement. It is the ONE contract where the SOCIETY dictates the terms of engagement to the participant. BEWARE when you enter into a marriage (everyone including “straight” people), the terms CAN and WILL change during the course of the life of the agreement. The terms change as the society sees fit, not the participant. So basically marriage can technically be termed as a contract that REDUCES a person’s rights and autonomy, not increase it.

So why is marriage so different, even though it is still just a contract? That brings me to my next point – the society as it relates to the “Kings”

4.       The society (the instrument of extending individual abilities and ensuring “immortality”)

The society, in my opinion, exists for one purpose and one purpose alone – to enhance the reach of the individual members. This is achieved by this thing called SPECIALIZATION.

Specialization: Specialization works in two ways that I can think of; firstly, each individual takes up a specific role in society (mostly intentionally), and tries to fulfill that role to the best of their ability. And if each individual does their job to the required standard you will automatically find that every single person becomes better off than if they were on their own. Some people make clothes, others build houses, others build computers, others clean our houses, and others repair our watches, ET c. It all works together like one big machine, and everybody is better because of it.

Secondly is PROCREATION. By some stroke of bad luck we humans tend to not be immortal – meaning that at some point we end up DEAD, whether we like it or not. The only KNOWN and VERIFIED cure for this big problem is procreation. And by another stroke of “bad luck” we can’t procreate alone – we need a human being who is slightly different from us to achieve it. And therefore another form of specialization is called into action.

Women and men must always work together to propagate their collective genes. And after their off spring are produced, the two participants are joined together for several more years (basically the rest of their lives) taking care of the off springs. That second part (after off springs are produced) is the reason society gets involved in this arrangement.

You see, technically procreation only involved two people. But in reality after the new human being (the child) is produced, the male participants normally tend to take off and leave the woman to shoulder the burden alone. As a result the child might grow up missing certain facilities e.g. money and resources, different guidance perspective, identity creation ET c, and by extension the woman’s family and the whole society might end up suffering as a whole in the long term.

That whole story is in addition to the fact that procreation is something that happens almost every second – the problem, if left unchecked, can quickly get out of hand!!!

So society invented a special contract to handle the procreation scenario. This contract was designed to fulfill among other things:

-          Protect the woman in the relationship from being left with children alone. You see women are the one who get to carry the child in their wombs for nine months (during which time they are severely limited in what they can do). Nature has also given women breasts, meaning for the first part of a child’s existence the woman is its only source of food. Put simply; the woman has a burden, and the man MUST be made to stick around to help out.

-          Protect the rights of the woman. If the woman had to abandon her livelihood in order to procreate with a man, then it is only logical that she owns half of whatever the man brings in while she is busy taking care of their children. This gives her the sense of security that is required to enable her specialize properly and focus on the task at hand.

-          Provide a stable economic and emotional environment for the bringing up of high quality (mentally) children. Children have genes from two sources. As such they have to come to terms with the two halves that make them up. The way to do this is by observing both halves in close proximity. This is a process of identity creation, which is very important of building Kings with self-esteem. In addition, having multiple perspectives to help build ones ideas from is very helpful. All in all, it is better for the child if both sources of genes are around is some form, and society in general seems to know this.

-          To some extent, another function of the contract is to tie and LIMIT the parties in a venture that ensures they can procreate repeatedly with one another without fearing that they will have to look for another person to procreate with. You see, society is a lot more neat and ORDERLY when multiple children are produced by two people than when people jump from one partner to another and a complex web of parents-off spring network forms. Children make easier sense of things when they share the same parents – who happen to be one ale and one female.

Marriage is then revealed for what it really is – a special contract for the guaranteed continued existence of a society and the individuals in it. MARRIAGE IS A SELF PRESERVATION MECHANISM. And this is the reason why society gets involved – it is too sensitive to gamble with, or else everybody ends up dead.

In that whole picture I have not mentioned gayness, and for good reason – GAYNESS DOES NOT FIT INTO THAT PICTURE. In fact if a society allowed gay marriage it would essentially be committing suicide. Do you want the society in which you live to end up dead? Maybe you do, but the rest of the people may not agree – and there you have the basic foundation for the resistance that gay people have been experiencing.

The gay people are committing genetic suicide, but the rest of society is refusing to go down with them. And for good reason: A SOCIETY LIKE KENYA IS LIBERAL ENOUGH TO ALLOW INDIVIDUALS TO GO ABOUT THEIR BUSINESSES WITHOUT INTERFERENCE. WHY WOULD A SMALL, TINY GROUP DEMAND OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY TO CHANGE AN INSTRUMENT OF ITS OWN SURVIVAL AND THEREBY COMMIT COLLECTIVE SUICIDE? It is just plain selfishness. Actually no. It goes beyond selfishness; what would you call the act of attempting to force someone else to commit suicide with you? That’s what it is …

 Allowing gay marriages would not add any value to a gay person’s life, but it would fundamentally alter the society to the extent that it will immediately start to decline. This can easily be observed in the numerous countries that have already legalized gay marriages; divorce rates are high because people don’t take marriage seriously, and population number have all but stopped because procreation is not taken seriously.

Over population: Some political strategists would argue that population numbers need to be checked. And what better way to make society to control itself than by planting a “Trojan horse” in its legal system that would automatically curb population growth!!! ALL ACTIONS START WITH AN IDEA, AND THE LAWS OF A SOCIETY ARE THE IDEAS THAT GUIDE ITS ACTIONS.  ALL ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. It all seems like a nice little strategy to control population, but so was the invention of HIV/ AIDS – that little bug wiped out huge chunks of the African population! (Personally, a significant proportion of my extended family is affected). And for what??? Most of the time it is the very best among the population that gets taken out – this is because the very best are the ones that tend to experiment a lot and live on the “edge”. A society that uses such tactics to control its population ends up killing all its leader and “alpha” individuals. (That is actually a compliment to the gay community!). There exist better ways to handle the population problems (which is a discussion for another day).

What gays really want is the permission to engage in “unnatural acts”, and more importantly rub it in people’s faces.

Unnatural acts: Gayness exist even in animals. And the cause and purpose of its existence vary widely. In humans it is, in my opinion, primarily for pleasure and emotional crutch of the participants. No other proper function can be defined.

Blow jobs, anal sex, sex toys, prostitution, masturbation ET c have one thing in common; they are designed as a genital massage whose objective is deriving pleasure. Normally these acts are supposed to be done in private (just like any other “hobby”). But when a group of individual insists on bringing their “business” into the public domain, then they should not complain when the public starts to meddle in the private affairs – after all they invited the public in!!!

Heterosexual sex is also a private affair. The participant derive pleasure from the activity (privately), but deep down they know that the act has the potential to produce offspring and the pleasure is just a side effect – for motivation. Putting the pleasure front and center, though it happens often, is actually very misguided and a sign that a person doesn’t understand what they are doing.

This is the reason why a man marries a woman, but a man doesn’t marry his hand, or his sex toy, or the prostitutes/ sluts that he sleeps with, or even the other man who provides him with a rectum to rub his penis in … it’s all hidden in the fine print! Just think for a second.

5.       Love and Friendship (Do we have a choice who we are attracted to?)

So gays tell us that they have no control over who the love, and that love conquers all. How romantic!!! Except it’s all a pile of emotional garbage! Why do I use such strong word? Because it is not fun having to deal with someone else’s emotional baggage – when you have your own to deal with.

Here’s the thing: people in fact have control of the people they are attracted to. And the few who don’t are normally TROUBLE MAKERS who end up getting PUNISHED by society at some point.

Ask any married heterosexual, he/ she will tell you that they have become sexually aroused by multiple people in their lifetime – almost daily. But their BETTER JUDGEMENT and sense of INHIBITION enables them to control that impulse and stick to the contract that they signed. HUMANS CANNOT ALLOW THEMSELVES TO FOLLOW EVERY SINGLE STRONG EMOTIONAL IMPULSE THAT THEY FEEL – better judgment MUST be used as a filter to know which ones to act on.

Secondly just because someone fascinates you, has the same interests as you, works with you daily, and appears to be very attractive, doesn’t mean that you have to have sex with them and marry them!

Friendship: My longest relationships are with people of the same gender as myself. Friend I met while I was in high school. These people share the same behavior traits as myself, or if they don’t their traits are very fascinating to me and compliment my traits. I feel quite good when am around these people, we engage in various social activities together, share ideas and protect each other’s’ interests. It’s all very warm and cozy, but in the end I got a lady and tied myself to her – not to the guys. Fact is, even though I spend most of my days with people of my gender – most of whom I like, even love – I choose to have sex with the woman I picked. (It helps that she is beautiful and smart!).

Why don’t I just have sex with all this attractive men that I meet every day? Why didn’t I have sex with all my high school friends? As a matter of fact, why don’t I have sex with my mother??? I love all these people, and to some extent am sexually attracted to them. Why, why, why. The answer is simple: BETTER JUDGEMENT!

I am one of the few men who can admit that sexual attraction does in fact exist all around us – among men, among women, and across the genders. In fact to some extent I can say I also love my computer (I have been around it twice as long as I have been around my spouse – 7yrs). Love is not the basis for marriage or sex – it is a primary and required ingredient, but not the basis. The foundation for marriage is a mix of things starting with a compatibility to procreate. FOR ALL THE REST OF THE RELATIONSHIP, WE HAVE FRIENDSHIP AND COMPANIONSHIP.

Marriage is not “permission to have sex”, “permission to cohabit”, “permission to love one another”, ET c. Any grown person who need a piece of paper to do those things is just NOT SERIOUS!!!

(At this level I assume you can remember what the true purpose of marriage is, as per my definition. Keep it in mind as we proceed)

High schools in Kenya: High schools in Kenya tend to be boarding and also tend to be same gender. 99% of my friends went through such institutions. Just think what would happen if the “kids” in these institutions thought it was okay to massage their penises in each other’s rectums!!! The whole system would fall apart! IT ALL STARTS WITH AN IDEA.

WE ARE ALL CAPABLE OF FORMING STONG BONDS AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEMBERS OF BOTH GENDERS. LOVE IS NOT GENDER SPECIFIC, BUT MARRIAGE IS.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The legal system: I have watched many legal T.V. shows in Kenya, and I have noticed a few things about legal proceedings. Lawyers use precedents and past judgments to advance their current agendas. They also use “logical connections” to defend their clients. It goes some like this, “if this is legal, then by extension that is legal too …”

Technically making gay marriages legal would have very little effect in the society in the short term. But in the long term who knows what connections lawyers will make based on gay marriages. I am a computer technician at the moment, and I can tell you this; very soon we are going to have very advanced computer programs running around the world. Advanced enough to be nearly indistinguishable from a human during conversation/ communication. I can already imagine the kind of argument a lawyer would put forward for a man who is excessively attached to his computer!

Legalizing gay marriages does in fact reinvent marriage as an institution, because it rethinks its entire purpose. It shifts the objective from “being for the kids” to “being for the pleasure/ emotional crutch needs of adults”. Is that what we want?

But here is a funny thought: MARRIAGE IS JUST A NAME OF A CONTRACT. Contracts can be named anything. If the gay lobby ends up succeeding (and they might since Kenyan politicians are very selfish and money oriented – and gays appear to be ready to spend), then society will start to immediately RE-EVOLVE. Like I said earlier, if society becomes unfit for helping its member advance their agendas, then a renegotiation normally happens and the society gets rebuilt from “scratch”.

If gay marriage become legal, lawyers will start to re-categorize the various “types” of marriage. This will enable them to separate the one where kids are involved from the ones that are just a game for some adults. Before you know it “marriage” would just be a form of “roommate-friendship” and the true marriage would be given another name. Bottom line, the gay lobby would be right where they started!!!

It is a fact, male-female union IS different from male-male, and is also different from female-female. THEY ARE NOT EQUAL, despite any wishful thinking we may have.

BOTTOM-LINE: Gay marriages should be made clearly ILLEGAL so that this whole debate can end and we get back to the business of building our “third world” country!!!

I can’t believe gays just made me spend almost 10hrs typing this thing!!!