Is Homosexuality an African or Un-African Human Rights Issue?

Abstract

Various predispositions—religious, cultural, and postcolonial—influence the socio-political and religious disputes on homosexuality in sub-Saharan Africa. I argue that African religious and political opposition to same-sex intimate relations is driven by the desire to protect an “African identity” and the youth from an assumed Western “assault” of the global sexual rights movement. This is an attitude, or stance, that may be considered “protective homophobia.” In addition to problematizing African identity as an ascriptive or imposed identity of colonial naming and shaming, I argue that growing democratic and human rights cultures aid the religio-cultural and political contestation of homosexuality as un-African and un-Christian vis-à-vis a human rights issue. In this contest, pro-sexual and anti-sexual rights movements seek to influence secular policy on human sexuality. Due to the religiosity of Africa, anti-homosexuality advocates win political attention.