Moral rights… morality… money money money.
Where money is concerned morality can fly out the window faster than you can
cay cock Rubenstein! The President, or is she the Prime Minister, I forget, of
Malawi, in the face of dwindling foreign aid is rescinding the ban on homosexuality. Yes,
folks, damn it all I’m back there yet again but I can’t help the news headlines
blazing away, now can I? While the money flows homosexuality is bad bad bad but
when the money stops because of human rights then it’s okay to be gay. The
hypocrisy I suppose is inevitable.
South Africa on the other hand is not only the one sensible and liberal country
in Africa where homosexuality is concerned but
evidently is actively encouraging it. Why? Money money money, the power of the
pink pound, the pink dollar, the pink whatever.
There is arguably no worse place in the
world to be gay than Africa. Today more than
two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexual acts and
across the continent the imprisonment, murder and abuse of gays has become part
of the fabric of society. So to many Africans the Rainbow Flag, which has
emerged as one of the most powerful and recognisable 21st Century symbols of
gay rights, is an unknown quantity. ‘But Cape Town is hoping to usurp Rio,
Toronto and Tel Aviv to become the world's favourite gay destination and win a
big slice of the "pink tourism" market which is worth an estimated
$80bn ($50bn) worldwide.’ Tel Aviv? Who would have thought it? The ancient
prophets must be turning in their graves. Does no one these days read
Leviticus? Gay men from all over
Africa face persecution, violence and even death in their home countries but in
Cape Town, if
only on holiday, they can be free”
South Africa has the
continent's only openly gay hotel, Cape
Town's Amsterdam House, founded in 1998, and usually
fully booked. The hotel's manager, Laurens Botha, (po po po as a Greek would
say, what does the Dutch Reformed Church think of that for goodness sake?) says
other businesses are benefiting from
the regular influx of gay visitors. Last year, in a survey carried out by the
publication ‘Out There’, North American travellers ranked South Africa as the third
"most wanted" travel destination. Cape Town, where 10% of all tourists who
visit the city are said to be gay, also won status as a worldwide favorite by ‘Out
and About’ magazine. Last year alone an estimated 200,000 gay tourists (there can’t
be that many in the world surely!) holidayed in Cape Town. South Africa's laws and
constitution have helped to make all this possible. It was the first country in
Africa to legalize same-sex marriage, and only
the fifth in the world to do so. For those forced to stay in the closet in
their home countries, South
Africa is liberating. The popularity of the
Rainbow Nation amongst gay travellers is thanks to liberal laws and the fact
that this is the only place in Africa where
you can be openly gay. You can walk on the beaches, go on safari and eat in
restaurants as gay partners without raising eyebrows let alone anything more
hazardous to health. Businesses across the country are also becoming more aware of the value of the pink Rand. This year the United Nations World Tourism Organization singled out South Africa in its Global Report on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) tourism. It said progressive attitudes in South Africa as well as Argentina, (Catholic!) India, Spain (Catholic!) and Mexico (Catholic!) had attracted the gay market in droves.
However all is not
sweetness and light. Prejudice remains. Lesbians in South Africa have experienced
shocking violence such as “corrective rape.”
Fanney Tismong, an acclaimed Johannesburg based film-maker who specialises in gay
issues and township life, says huge strides have been achieved in South Africa
but he agrees deep prejudices still remain in many parts of the country and
many gays in the townships live in fear of sexual assault and murder. More than
30 women have been killed in South
Africa in the past two years because of
their sexuality.
"We are making progress and we stand out alone in this regard in Africa, but we are not quite at the end of the rainbow
yet". 
1 comment:
Leviticus is a set of rules for Jewish priests, the last of whom died some 2000 years ago; it doesn't apply even to other Jews.
If 10% of the tourists are gay, that's less than the percentage of gay folk in the population in general.
See the Kinsey scale in Wikipedia, which has since been confirmed scientifically by several other researchers- Gay exclusively or almost so: some 37% of the population; same for heteros.
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