Poet and novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a beautiful response to the passing of Nigeria’s anti-gay law. The law, passed on January 7th, has already led to dozens of arrests. A similar bill looks likely to pass soon in Uganda, where President Yoweri Museveni announced last week that – after getting hopes up otherwise – he does intend to sign the bill into law. The legislation itself provides for life imprisonment for some homosexual acts, makes it a crime not to report gay people to the authorities and prohibits any discussion of homosexuality that is not condemnatory.
In her piece Adichie systematically takes on the familiar knee-jerk responses of her homophobic interlocutors: being gay is un-African, being gay leads to bestiality, gay men are pedophiles, being gay isn’t “normal”, being gay is “un-Christian”. To each she provides a calm but incisive smack-down. Seriously, Beyoncé, all we need now is for you to put this to music immediately.
Read the article here.
Want more /bent? Follow us on Twitter.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
