Ethical argumentation and homosexuality in Africa

I am part of the teaching faculty in a NIH-funded bioethics capacity building program in Cape Town, South Africa, named Advancing Research Ethics in Southern Africa (ARESA). The program targets mid-career health professionals who are liable to contribute to the bioethics culture in their home institutional environment: when serving on their research ethics committees, writing articles, teaching classes, and so on. Part of the bioethics training is in philosophy: after all, bioethics is a form of applied ethics, and ethics is a central branch of philosophy. This means that critical thinking and argumentation are core skills for those in the field: when moral claims are made, bioethicists are supposed to examine and evaluate the ethical reasons that support them.

In principle, the idea of philosophical argumentation is not difficult to convey. But in my experience, sympathy towards the practice depends what specific claim is being examined. Predictably, the holier the cow, the greater the reluctance. Examining the moral claims "Homosexuality is immoral" and/or "Homosexuality should be illegal", in the African context, seems to be even harder than exploring the reasons against abortion. This is unfortunate, given the topicality of the moral and legal status of homosexuality, now that Ugandan President Museveni has recently signed anti-gay legislation. It is also unfortunate given the painfully low quality of the debate. It is just supposed to be obvious why homosexuality is wrong, dangerous, to be outlawed. If you ask for reasons, the responses are not promising.

Case in point. Take this editorial in The Observer, a prominent newspaper in Kampala, Uganda. Entitled "Uganda must resist resist West on anti-gay legislation." The 'must' indicates that a normative claim is being made, i.e. that there are good reasons for laws against homosexuality in Uganda. So what good reasons are offered? Let me sum them up:

• A book written back in 1989 set out a six-point plan to promote the rights of same-sex persons. According to conservative groups in the USA, the book initiated an agenda in which anti-gay legislation is packaged as an affront in terms of human rights, justice, and freedom.
• Gay groups use scientific research to prove that homosexuality is innate, and some gay people claim to know they were gay at the age of five, which is ridiculous. 
• Gay groups claim that all dissent against their views is homophobia. 
• All religious denominations in Uganda say that homosexuality is abominable, detestable, repugnant and offends God. 

When potential harm is connected to a moral claim, then the arguments in support of that claim should be very robust. Given that anti-gay legislation means prison for sexual orientation -- not to mention encouragement of anti-gay 'street justice' when names of gay persons are published -- the standards for rational justification should be high. Suggestions of that the global rise of gay rights is due to a 'roadmap' in an obscure book does not do it; if scientific research on homosexuality is dubious, that should be argued for, not insinuated; the weaknesses of (selectively) using holy scripture to support moral claims are well-known. This is just one editorial (by a lecturer at a higher education institution in Uganda), but there is a pattern. Backed against a wall, those in Africa in favor of outlawing homosexuality are asked to give reasons, and then out comes everything and the kitchen sink. Except good arguments. And when you are violently opposed to homosexuality, without being able to give good reasons, then homophobia might just be the best explanation of what you are doing. When will the Ugandan bioethicists rise up and start a meaningful debate? 

AIDS, gay men and Africa

Authorities in many African nations are deeply troubled by the prospect of having men who have sex with men in their midst. While living in South Africa a few years ago, I remember a heated debate in the letters to editor section of the Mail and Guardian about whether homosexuality was a purely imported phenomenon, something alien and originating from the fleshpots of (say) southern California, and dropped recently into Africa. The idea was that if it was something new and foreign, it could hopefully be returned to sender, like an unwanted package. But it eventually appeared that the phenomenon wasn't really new or entirely foreign to Africa. So what couldn't be denied would have to be repressed; while not unAfrican, the behavior was nevertheless an abomination. Many African churches have joined with political authorities over the years in their attempts to condemn and marginalize the sexual behavior of gay African men. In most African countries, homosexuality is still illegal.

Last week, the New York Times reported the sentencing of nine men in Senegal to eight years in prison for 'unnatural acts.' The men were arrested in the house of a leading gay HIV/AIDS activist in Dakar. The events in Senegal join a long list of repressive political actions against gay men in African countries, including Nigeria, Gambia, Burundi and Uganda. Now there is a lot that one could say, from a human rights or social justice perspective, about the political treatment of men who have sex with men in Africa. But there is also a public health ethics perspective: demonization of homosexuality is counterproductive in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, just as it was in America during the early days of the epidemic. Condemnation and criminalization simply drives the behavior underground, away from prevention and treatment services, increasing risks of HIV transmission. The conclusion is hard to avoid: the HIV/AIDS epidemic has forced African countries to deal with homosexuality in their communities, but many have failed to develop responses that are justified from a public health point of view or even reflect basic human decency.