MkenyaMzalendo
Senior Member
- Sep 12, 2010
- 171
- 16
Mkenyamzalendo,
In this debate I think it will be prudent to keep the west out of it maana you remember how during the referendum, the church and kina Ruto insisted on foreign ideologies not being sneaked into the Kenyan agenda. This LGBT business is one of them. So for the sake of this debate lets not go there for now.
With the highlighted statement I believe you snatched the words right out of my mouth and thats where the slippery slope arises.
Kisha I don't think the Constitution outlaws gay marriage but simply defines it as a union between a man and a woman, I believe.Chapter 4 says something like this:
Family
45. (1) The family is the natural and fundamental unit of society and the
necessary basis of social order, and shall enjoy the recognition and
protection of the State.
(2) Every adult has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex, based on
the free consent of the parties.
Now just to play devils advocate, what happens if an individual undergoes a sex change and becomes a 'woman'...it she/he
given this highlighted privilege above? Personally I dont think they should be prevented to marry if they are of legal age but
somebody will argue that the initial gender assignement on the birth certificate is what should be used. What say you in
such an instance?
If you catch my drift this far, I'm tryna say that there are many loopholes on that supreme document and some of it is
because the CoE did not want to get entagled in a mess they had no gameplan of getting out of. Imagine if that
document had contained words like sexual orientation or LGBT..Si the conservative wing of the Jamhuri would have
gone up in flames? Kwa hivyo Raila was just playing to his mtaa aducience lakini kina Gaitho and many of his detractors
saw it as fodder to chew him out.
There is currently no law that regulates the practice of sex change, bu I would think if one changed his sex from man-woman, he should be considered a woman under the law as well--and therefore entitled to all the protection given to women under the law. Though I have to say this is a grey area and we will know more if and when it happens in the country.
The problem came about because the Church members insisted that CoE include marriage provisions in the draft, and there was also pressure from donor countries and gay organizations to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. The CoE gave in to the Church's demands but ruled out changes proposed by the latter. Both were ill conceived in my opinion. You shouldn't legislate morality because notions about morality change a great deal with time. There are some things that were generally considered immoral when I was growing up but aren't seen as immoral anymore, or at least are now widely accepted (like "grinding"). Kitambo, one could never have a live-in girlfriend and you had to wait until marriage. Today, no one really ares about that. I think in 30 years time, no one will be bothered by gays, and homophobes will be talked of in the same breath as die-hard racists of yester years. Personally, I think a man boning another man is just gross; but for as long as it's kept out of the public, I don't have any problem with it.
I think Raila just wanted to grab the headlines. And gay bashing is a sure vote-getter in a conservative country like ours.He has just retracted his statement, and is now saying that he was only saying that the constitution bans gay marriage (it's called spin). But the story has caused a huge international furore, and he probably got a call from his "cousin" Obama and instructed to withdraw his statement.