By Francis Ewherido
My personal struggles and imperfections notwithstanding, I hold very strong views on sexuality, molded mainly by my conservative Christian orientation. But I have also come to accept that we live in a free and secular world, and I therefore must tolerate contrary views and tendencies.

That was basically what informed my silence when the bill banning “same sex marriage” was passed into law recently. I try not to worry myself about gays and what they or other people do behind closed doors. That is God’s beat.

I am also striving to see all humankind in the image and likeness of God. In an insane world, I figure that is one of the few ways to stay sane. But when the news broke that an openly gay Episcopal Bishop in America, Gene Robinson, was about divorcing “his husband,” Mark Andrew, it became a case of monkey dey sleep, yanga go wake am.

I could not help but snap: “which husband and how did a ‘he’ become a wife?” And it got me thinking, who is a husband? Wikipedia says a “husband is a male partner in a marital relationship…A man’s spouse is his wife.” Who is a wife then? Wikipedia again says a “wife is a female partner in a continuing marital relationship…A woman’s spouse is the husband.”Going by these definitions, Bishop Robinson is wrong in seeing himself as a “wife”.

But how did Robinson come to see himself as a “wife”? I need to be educated and liberated from my ignorance. Is it that he is the passive partner in the union? But that will not qualify him to be called a wife because in many marriages the wives are the dominant partners.

Or is he the partner with less financial muscle? In many homes these days, wives are the bread winners, so it still does not add up. Or is it that he is the passive “sexual” partner. If yes, since both of them have male organs what happens when they get bored and decide to do role reversal. Will Robinson temporarily become “husband” and Andrew become “wife” for that brief moment? Now I am getting even more confused.

Often when people blindly fight for minority rights, they do not know when they trample on the rights of the majority. My brother, Emma, told me a story. He said they were out relaxing in Abraka, Delta State. From one issue to another, they got to the issue of homosexuality. While the discussion was on, there was a young man among them who went quiet.

He did not understand what they were talking about. When he could not bear it any more, he requested to be educated. It took a while to make him understand. Then it hit him: “Una mean say man and man go….” His voice trailed off and he started vomiting. He fell ill immediately and had to be hospitalized. The shock of what he just found out was too much for him. So, what about this young man’s rights?

Honestly, I do not worry myself about homosexuals. I just thank God for creating that indescribable sexual pleasure that exists between a man and a woman, especially when exercised within matrimony. There is nothing like it and it never ceases to amaze me. I also thank God that we are not all gays; if not humankind would become extinct in a little over a century from now.

Where I have problems with gays is when they confuse me like Bishop Robinson is doing. As my professor in the university, Sylvanus Ekwelie, used to tell students with communist orientation, “You can choose to live in your Moscow or Siberia, but allow the rest of us the freedom to be ensconced in our Washington and New York.”

My other grouse is why gay people want to be parents by whatever means. They cannot have their cake and eat it. My parents used to tell us that you cannot prevent a child from growing protruding teeth provided he grows enough lips to cover them. That they chose to be gay also means they have chosen to jettison parenthood. They cannot go through the back door to become parents, because it takes a man and a woman to bring a child into the world.

That is something they are averse to; you do not use teeth to cut and share the meat you will not eat. If we were all gay, who will help them to produce the babies? I was really pissed off the other time Elton John and his partner, David Furnish, were arguing about whose sperm fathered their first child. Both of them had donated sperms to a surrogate mother. They should keep such arguments private.

Let us get a few things straight for the benefit of some of us. One, gays are partners not husband and wife. Two, gay liaison is not marriage (Never mind Webstar Dictionary, which now alternately defines marriage as “the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of traditional marriage.” I will not be surprised if I stumble on new definitions of wife or husband which exclude their genders). Marriage is between a man and a woman.

Its primary purposes are companionship and procreation. While gay partners can lay claim to companionship, procreation is completely out of it. In some marriages, procreation might not take place for varying reasons, but there is capacity (presence of male and female). America, Europe, Australia, South America and whoever is next can sanction gay unions, but it does not change what God has ordained( Matthew 19:4-5); marriage is immutable.