You Have to Be Gay to Know God - Exclive Books

Contents:

• YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD
• BOOK CORNER: SIYA KHUMALO’S ‘YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD’
• YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD PAPERBACK – 26 APRIL 2018
• YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD KDLE EDN
• YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD

YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD

When Siya first explaed the ncept behd to me, we revelled s potentially subversive ratnale for showg the ravag of relign-based homophobia on our polics, the enomy, and on as people. The Constutn is often removed om South Ains’ liv, ironilly, bee the relig eedom upholds is voked to stifle other rights; s promise of eedom om relign allows those not directly enmhed the practice or effects of relig homophobia to look the other way. Generoly, Siya has said that his choice to speak out on homophobia was a ripple effect of my choice to e out and speak up, om a eply personal vantage, about sexualy and AIDS.

I shudred wh disappotment as I sensed that my extend fay members’ passn for all livg creatur was tempered by this ia that this guy uld and should have ma life easier for himself by not beg danger’s path; by not actg so … gay.

BOOK CORNER: SIYA KHUMALO’S ‘YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD’

Genis 19, which has the story of Sodom and Gomorrah’s stctn and is ually thought of as the Bible’s first reference to homosexualy, tells the patriarch Lot offered his two virg dghters to be raped by the neighbourhood’s mobs stead of his male guts.

I uldn’t promise celibacy unls he gave me the strength to overe the sexual urg I already sensed were an extrible part of my humany, but I also uldn’t see myself actually gog ahead wh gay sex. I joed the South Ain Natnal Defence Force bee livg unr a Constutn that enshred gay people’s rights spe wispread ignorance around them, I wanted to explore and fend as many facets of the ernment that had ma this huge leap forward possible. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell I’d avoid publicisg my sexual orientatn bee there was a game afoot — a tribalistic petn for rourc and posns which beg openly gay would be a handip.

YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD PAPERBACK – 26 APRIL 2018

Did we really believe a liberatn movement, whose trag mp stori clud sexual harassment sndals, homophobic ras and unrolved murrs, livered the most progrsive Constutn the world had seen at the time? Psychiatrist Dr Mart Kantor has said, ‘Attemptg to keep gays and lbians om gettg out of ntrol and makg signifint roads to (and so erodg) straight society is the homophobe’s way to nvce himself that “I am the procs of exertg ntrol over myself”, ’ but at ‘a eper level, many homophob an erotophobia exists that is characterised by an ordate amount of sexual guilt and shame.

’ A judge wryly timated that when Mbeki said standard AIDS theori acce Ains of havg ‘sex wh gay abandon’, he betrayed such a nrotic need to mata an image of Ains that (I believe) looks like the image he projects to the world. She didn’t see why would be a problem that heterosexual people uld look forward to marriage but gay people would be left high, dry and whout a way to ‘tch up’ to the moral requirements of relig law. Gazg at the green rtrant logo wh bs of ppucco dryg on the whe porcela was prted on, I wonred whether the church knew that even when they didn’t mentn homosexualy by name, they were fuckg wh gay boys by their heterosexism alone.

If relign was gog to be fuckg people wh the pervert label, however muted the words and however dog-whistled the judgment — however vered by the blood of the Lamb my s and theirs were — I was gog to make them adm they liked md-fuckg gay boys, some of whom had probably worshiped wh the band skny jeans. The problem is when the chips are down, ’s that fabric and not women’s rights that is more important — kd of like how, when the chips are down, black rights tmp gay rights. I remember Durban Lbian & Gay Communy & Health Centre’s Director, Nonhlanhla Mkhize, reunt that many KZN townships she’d heard of homophobic gangs threateng to extermate all LGBTI people, while other members of the same muni swore to protect the LGBTI muny.

YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD KDLE EDN

’ I explaed how I’d been discsg relig homophobia on different platforms and was jt givg him a heads-up se someone realised I was an active member of his church, helpg wh the d-visual display durg worship and the sermon.

The church pastor we’ll ll Simon almost tried spltg the relig law to ceremonial, moral and civil aspects so as to tell me that the moral facet that nmns homosexualy was universally bdg, even if s civil and ceremonial aspects were repealed for Christian believers.

How uld I say, ‘Homosexualy is a s acrdg to the word of the God I say I love’ out of one si of the mouth, and then, ‘I love Daniel and I’m a homosexual relatnship wh him’ out of the other? That was when a miracle appeared: an terpretative flexibily that my silverbullet vers for gay people uld never be afford ghed forth when church wh female lears wanted to fend progrsivens their own terts. ’ When ‘we’re all jt sners, saved by grace’ be a reason not to ll out fellow sners who bully gay ‘sners’, then grace is no longer grace: ’s licence to not get volved.

YOU HAVE TO BE GAY TO KNOW GOD

As I listened to him, noddg along, I realised as long as I was alg wh one church private, that church uld get away wh sayg, ‘It’s a mystery’ while gay children were beg bullied. We — I at the ont; Miss Malaika (a talented drag artist) on a middle float, Miss Honey Ryr, Miss Lounge, also a fabulo drag artist — along wh untls gays, lbians, affirmg church groups, Mlims, Hd and many other alli marched around the cy proclaimg and celebratg our existence.

Or the activists thk, “This is antiquated, ’s brawashg, ’s doctratn” and turn to a relignvers-atheism fight as though people are about to part wh their whole fah jt so they n embrace gay people. ’ One of them scribed me as a ‘crimal and a fool’; another said, ‘Gays are not really human begs, they’re aliens om unknown plas who me to earth to disturb the orr of nature.

If I reaed, would be as though Zambia had neher an LGBTI populatn, nor a supprsed stggle for the realisatn of rights, nor anythg at all to say on the world stage about what meant to be gay, black and Ain. only have one reprentative the Mr Gay World ntt — Mr Gay South Ai, Craig Maggs, a blue-eyed blond-haired English-speakg gentleman who, for his nsirable virtu, is only reflective of some of the Ain suatn. At one of the parti we went to after that, he approached me while I was on my umpteenth red we and chattg to fellow Mr Gay South Ai nttant, Patrick, who saw him approach, and said, ‘Siya, I thk this guy wants to talk to you.