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despite him being happily married to First Lady Michelle Obama, and having two daughters.
President Obama told the world in so few words that after some soul-searching, he had come to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with same-sex marriages: “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,’’ he said in what was described as a hastily arranged television interview at the White House, on ABC’s “Good Morning America”.
According to the US law on marriage — the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) — marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman, but President Obama wants the law repealed as he argued, “We don’t think the Defence of Marriage Act is constitutional.”
The gauntlet has been thrown down into the ring as the zenith that defines family values and the issues that make those seeking office electable are now in contestation. And, considering the United States’ influence on the global arena, Obama’s statement will reverberate in every nation state, thanks to modern technology, which also helped us hear him speak in real time.
Since the US president was giving personal views, so also are the remarks I will make. I try to situate them from where I am, what they mean to me, what their implications could be on Zimbabwe, and what their ultimate meaning are on the human race. The affirmation to Obama’s statement was by way of monies that flowed into his campaign coffers an hour after he made the statement: one million dollars in one hour.
How much is it now? And, how much will have flowed in by November? Was it about values, or it was just about how much money he can raise? There are numerous claims about the huge gay community in the Democratic Party, and that gays are also among Obama’s major campaign financiers.
But not everybody is happy. Brian Brown, president of the National Organisation for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, said, “People are calling and asking what more they can do . . . What’s happened is that President Obama made this one of the major issues of the campaign. This is an issue that goes to the core of who people are. It’s emotion-filled but, ultimately, moves people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do, whether it’s join the campaign or donate.”
Obama’s statement was a warm-up to weekend fund-raising engagements in California and New York, both of which are very liberal regarding gay issues. So, in reality, he was targeting a converted electoral audience but an audience which by virtue of its work has a global appeal. Hollywood is a household name and it has transformed the way people around the globe do things. So, introducing this subject before the fund-raising dinners was a sure way of grabbing attention.
He was in the process also eliminating his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, pushing him against the wall just as his deputy Joe Biden had done to him the previous week. With Biden coming out in the open about same-sex marriages, it was important that the president had to stop vacillating but tell the voting public what his position was.
It can therefore be concluded that Biden did the agenda-setting, and gay marriages have become a US 2012 election issue, overtaking another contentious issue — pro-life or anti-life. Romney for now has maintained his position that marriage is between one man and one woman. But, the real question is why homosexuality has suddenly become so powerful a force in our socio-economic and political spheres. Is it the money and power? Why are the rights of a very small portion of people, worldwide, eclipsing the rights of the majority — the 1 percent as opposed to the 99 percent? Why are their rights and privileges ballooned in such a manner that they look like they are an endangered species and they force-feed them on the 99 percent? To realise how this will affect Africa, the past year has a number of anecdotes when homosexuality has been a leading agenda fronted on African states by Western countries. As Africa’s presidents grappled with this frightening phenomenon, they forgot that in the late 90s, they could have created a strong firewall against the issue, if they had supported President Mugabe, who made history by denouncing homosexuality. He was called homophobic, but Africa thought it was his problem alone. Even the church in Zimbabwe vacillated on the President’s position, and only started speaking when some compromises had already been made elsewhere.
This is why the issue of homosexuality in the draft constitution hangs around Zimbabwe’s neck like a millstone. To kick start that agenda was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his sudden Malawi visit last year after the imprisonment of a gay couple who wanted to marry. Mr Ban’s visit saw late president Bingu wa Mutharika announcing that the two had been pardoned and were subsequently released.
We asked then, whose emissary the Secretary-General was, and continued to ask when he told African leaders at an African Union summit to realise that gay rights are human rights. Was he pleading the rights of homosexuals on behalf of the UN member states or on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon world which has embraced homosexuality?
So, something that starts off as a shared personal feeling will transform into policy, backed by legal instruments. I have debated this casually with some people, and one of my colleagues on Tuesday said, “Listen, all of you! Obama is speaking for all of them even at party levels. This is the America he knows and understands, and all he has done is to bite the bullet and say what all of them could not say. Unfortunate though it is, you should credit him for speaking his mind and for allowing us to see their true values. Even those Republicans know that there are many homosexuals in their midst. So, too, members of Congress! This is America for you.”
We have been caught unawares, I’d like to believe, bickering, instead of dealing with contentious clauses in the draft constitution. It was as though we were buying time to put the noose round our necks.
Instead of creating a firewall to avert the coming disaster, we did not. While the public media identified loopholes in the draft constitution regarding gay rights, the privately owned media was on the other end of the pole. By claiming that Zanu-PF was now in support of the gay rights in the constitution, the Daily News this week was playing politics and aiming at the Zanu-PF presidency. But what has baffled many is why President Obama has decided to take such a huge gamble, using a divisive issue like same-sex marriages.
Depending on whom you listen to and whom you want to believe, the main reason that comes up is that he is opting for a social issue, which touches on people’s live wires, and in the process, evading bigger issues — the economy and massive unemployment.
Thus he is taking a 1 percent issue before a 1 percent support base and turning it into a global issue.