America is hardly the only country in the world where Christian reactionaries demand that the country be officially dedicated to their religion and to punishing gay people to the fullest extent possible. Zambia has the same problem. And wait till you see the name of the group pushing for it:
Christians in Zambia have declared they will march Thursday in the capital city to pressure the government to clearly state that homosexuality is not tolerated in the country and should not be protected by the new Zambian constitution, according to local reports.
The march, organized by Christian NGO Zambia Rainbow Coalition, will reportedly take place in Lusaka. Zambia Rainbow Coalition has also called for including a clause in the constitution that would explicitly define marriage as a union between a man and a women, which would presumably exclude the possibility of introducing same-sex marriage at any time, reported Zambia Watchdog.
Zambia is a mostly Christian nation, with the Christian community being very vocal in opposing gay rights or even tolerating homosexuality.
“This [homosexuality] is a new concept to our culture which Zambians will not entertain as in Zambia we do not even have local terminology for homosexuality,” Rainbow Coalition director of programs Malekano Mwanza told Zambia Watchdog.
NGO in this case doesn’t stand for non-governmental organization; it stands for nutcases guaranteeing oppression.
21 comments
1 ping
Skip to comment form ↓
kathyo
January 2, 2012 at 12:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I highly doubt that homosexuality is a new concept in their culture.
Wes
January 2, 2012 at 12:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So, if you don’t have a word for it, it’s not there. By that reasoning, electrons just popped into existence some time in the late 1800s.
But, anyways, if they are Christian, homosexuality can’t possibly be new to their culture. It’s mentioned in the Bible several times. Of course, being Christian, my guess is they probably haven’t read their Bibles very closely, so maybe they missed it.
RickR
January 2, 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Huh. I was 99% sure the group would have “Family” in their name.
Sastra
January 2, 2012 at 12:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I love how they’re framing this as an attempt to defend an oppressed culture from repression by colonialists. Human rights are so Western Imperialist.
harold
January 2, 2012 at 1:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is very common in post-colonialist countries. It’s roughly the equivalent of Fox News framing every terrible idea as “Patriotic”.
exdrone
January 2, 2012 at 1:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This [homosexuality] is a new concept to our culture which Zambians will not entertain as in Zambia we do not even have local terminology for homosexuality
Did they steal any other talking points from Ahmadinejad?
matty1
January 2, 2012 at 1:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Unlike Christianity which has been introduced by foreign missionaries?
Chris from Europe
January 2, 2012 at 2:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I still believe that they’ve got the talking points partially written by their American friends. It could be, but in my view it’s unlikely that the same talking points spring up from Jamaica to East Africa.
yoav
January 2, 2012 at 2:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That’s probably an example to what Darth Benedict calls Africa’s joyful passion for faith.
dan4
January 2, 2012 at 3:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@2. “But, anyways, if they are Christian, homosexuality can’t possibly be new to their culture. It’s mentioned in the Bible several times.”
The events of the Bible took place in Zambia? News to me.
organon
January 2, 2012 at 4:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lol
Chris from Europe
January 2, 2012 at 8:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@dan4
Do you play being obtuse? If they are Christian, they have read or heard about it. Your reaction doesn’t make sense.
MikeMa
January 2, 2012 at 8:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Obama’s new foreign policy limiting aid where this sort of crap is practiced might have a chilling effect. At the very least it might force he American fundies to spend a lot more to prop up this idiocy.
The Christian Cynic
January 2, 2012 at 8:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Am I seriously the only one to read this headline at a glance as “Zombie Christians March for Theocracy”? Now that would be a story.
dan4
January 2, 2012 at 9:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@12: A person can be “aware” of something and yet not have it be present in his/her culture. That’s what I was getting at.
mareap
January 3, 2012 at 9:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Christian Cynic, I read it that way, too!
dingojack
January 3, 2012 at 9:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Zombie Christians”? Who could tell the difference?
:) Dingo
harold
January 3, 2012 at 10:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What he does, in my opinion, is play at being even stupider than he actually is.
This is a common mental trick that hateful bigots play on themselves.
They hold views that are so at odds with either reality, or other values they simultaneously claim to hold, that they experience constant cognitive dissonance.
In order to stamp down the constant mental torment a little, they claim to “not understand” things that anyone can understand.
Damn this is stupid. I realize that some of the stupidity merely consists of repeating stupid arguments that originated in Zambia.
1) Zambia is a post-colonial state and is diverse in terms of cultures, religion, and languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambia
2) It’s unlikely to the point of absurd that any sizable cultural group of humans is entirely free of homosexuality. Our culture is traditionally highly homophobic, which is actually why we have the word “homosexual”, which arose from the idea that it was a medical issue.
3) It’s completely irrelevant anyway. Eating soybean products was definitely not part of my culture until very recently. That’s not a reason to make tofu illegal. Clearly, there must be gay people in Zambia now, and they deserve human rights.
4) What obviously “wasn’t present in Zambian cultures” until it was imported from the west was politically aggressive Christian authoritarianism. Of course, Zambian cultures probably had plenty of aggressive an inhumane authoritarianism before Christianity; that’s true of most human cultures. But Christian authoritarianism is fairly new.
dingojack
January 3, 2012 at 10:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
harold – pay no attention to Aspro-boy, why do the thinking for him?
Briefly pity this poor soul who can’t muster two neurones to rub together, and then, ruefully, move on.
Dingo
FlickingYourSwitch
January 3, 2012 at 1:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rainbow Coalition. The jokes write themselves. Isn’t the rainbow an excellent symbol for tolerance and diversity?
dingojack
January 3, 2012 at 11:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder if ‘The Rainbow Coalition’ was dreamed up by some American aide, who before being ‘exiled’ thought up ‘Teabagger’?
;) Dingo
watch shows|watch family guy|watchshows
April 22, 2012 at 7:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
watch shows|watch family guy|watchshows…
[...]Zambian Christians March for Theocracy | Dispatches from the Culture Wars[...]…