Nations are free to decide legislative approach to gayism

By Charles Kanjama

When British lawmaker John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) penned his influential work, “On Liberty” (1859), he probably did not foresee how far the application of his philosophy would take the modern world. Mill was the son of a Scottish philosopher. He learnt Latin and Greek in his childhood, and obtained a broad classical education. However, the strongest philosophical influence in his life was from his father’s friend, Jeremy Bentham, a notable British philosopher and founder of utilitarian philosophy.

The classic formulation of Bentham’s philosophy is that society should aim for “the greatest good for the greatest number.” However, while this seems to be a noble and even praiseworthy object, Bentham’s philosophy was later criticised for lacking a mature concept of justice and natural rights, as well as excessive emphasis on ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’, or the hedonistic calculus, in explaining human behaviour.

John Stuart Mill developed Bentham’s philosophy further, and argued that society should only have a narrow and limited power over the individual, based on ‘the harm principle’. For Mill, the harm principle meant that society can only justify exercising control over individuals if their behaviour threatens to harm others. While Mill claimed that a person should be allowed to consent to self-harm, he argued that serious harm done to oneself could be prohibited because it may also harm others. Mill, like Bentham, understood harm to mean mainly physical harm or violence, embracing aspects of the hedonistic calculus.

Almost a hundred years later (1957), the Wolfenden Committee in England published a landmark report calling for the decriminalisation of homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private, grounds that such behaviour would not affect others and involved consent of mature adults. Homosexual behaviour, according to the Wolfenden Report, was merely an issue of private morality, and would not affect public order and decency. This led to the 1967 Sexual Offence Act in England, which decriminalised homosexuality, and triggered its gradual legalisation in other parts of the world.

The rhetorical argument of libertarian philosophers is this, “Why should it bother anyone what others do in a locked room in private?” The answer of classical scholastic philosophy, which predates utilitarianism and has its roots in Aristotle’s ancient Greek philosophy, is that one’s actions create habits that develop into one’s character, thus affecting one’s social interactions.

This point has come into focus in recent global trends on homosexuality. In the Western world, a clear pattern was established, which starts with decriminalising homosexual behaviour, to protecting it and eventually encouraging it. Critics of homosexual lifestyles are first requested to tolerate it, and then obliged to do so, and finally ostracised for their critical views. The traditional heterosexual institutions like marriage are first imitated by supporters of homosexuality through stable ‘civil unions’, and then forcefully altered to accommodate the gay lifestyle. And ultimately, Mill’s basic theory is proven false, since legalisation of homosexuality inevitably and increasingly affects others, including children, who were Mill’s Holy Grail. The gay agenda demands a right of adoption and rearing of children by homosexual couples, as well as a right to “value-free education” of all other children to enable them have an opportunity to embrace homosexuality if they choose.

And then, with a subtle but violent flip worthy of the pro-abortion movement, the assertion of the right to choose between two options soon metastasizes into a duty to choose a particular option. This ultimately leads to a loss of choice since homosexuality is then deemed to be an innate or genetic aspect of being that cannot change. And so the gay agenda comes full circle from asserting personal liberty in matters of sexual orientation, to enforcing social coercion on everyone else. Since the gay agenda cannot succeed without a suffocating in-your-face gay propaganda, certain nations have chosen to push back by passing legislation outlawing aspects of gay propaganda and lifestyle. Russia outlawed gay propaganda and kept gay behaviour legal. Nigeria affirmed that gay behaviour was illegal and created penalties for gay propaganda. In Uganda, MPs missed the mark by introducing harsh penalties.

What is clear from recent legal developments regarding sexual orientation is that it is up to each nation to determine its reasonable legislative approach to gay behaviour, based on its cultural values as well as a proper perception of human dignity. In doing so, it must be kept in mind that the gay rights movement, if given an inch, will demand a mile. Or even an entire marathon course!