By Bisi Lawrence

This is something that President Jonathan did not do; he did not make any law against same-sex marriage.

He only signed a bill that had been passed against it in parliament into law. That is what describes an aspect of his functions as the President of the Republic of Nigeria. It is as simple as that. He has enough controversies surrounding his office at the moment, what with the hanging issue of some ten billion naira that has missed its way to the Federation Account, the two bullet-proof limousines that are still attracting telling shots from several directions, the deplorable situation in Rivers State and other head-aching problems on his plate. And yet, to read the views of some pundits, it’s Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan — as if the man hasn’t had his name mentioned enough. If there is anyone to blame, it has to be the Nigerian people who were represented by the people they elected to take such decisions on their behalf. So, please leave President Jonathan out of this.

With regard to the people, they have a right to decide ON what they believe to be good for the health of the society in which they live, and in which they rear their children. It is not a matter for compromise. It is a matter of the greater good for the greater number of people. That is democracy, isn’t it? Of course, it is. The National Assembly performed its duty as an instrument for the government of the people, by the people and for the people — no more, no less.

It is accepted that these homosexuals are human beings. Yes, but so are criminals. They have rights as human beings, no less than maniacs. Some uninformed people call them “animals”, which is patently uncharitable — to animals, that is. I mean, did you ever see a tom-cat lusting after another tom-cat; or a stallion trying to mount another stallion; or a cockerel chasing after another cockerel? Of course not! It would be cruel, inhumane, to condemn homosexuals though, because they are said to be unable to help themselves—like kleptomaniacs, who suffer under an obsession to take what does not belong to them, even when it is of no value to them.

Such acts may rather be termed as unnatural since they are not in conformity with nature.

But those whose characters are seized by such aberrations seldom gloat over their shortcomings. They conduct themselves with a respectable amount of diffidence while expressing the rights of their existence as assertively as tradition or the law allows them. On the other hand, it is now becoming fashionable, especially in Europe and the United States, to have homosexuals flaunting their perverted sexuality at the sensitivities of normal people as though they have to be accepted as the cream of the society. I, personally, don’t have to accept them — and neither did the National Assembly. But I don’t condemn them while, at he same time, offering no welcome to the garish display of their offensive ostentation which is summarised by their self-given title of “gay”.

These are people who were once labelled as “queers”. That was what people thought they were, and many still think they are. Some called them “poofs” and some called them ‘’punks’’. At that time, many of them effaced themselves from public purview. They have been around for ages, in all cultures, with the predominance being in one gender or the other, from place to place, but the practice was always viewed as immoral and satanic even.

The Holy Bible condemned it; The Holy Koran also denounced it. But then the age of relativism stepped in to propound that concepts of what may be good or bad, true or false, heavy or light need not be considered absolute, but can vary from one culture to another. One man’s food is another man’s poison, so to say.

The doctrine of permissiveness thus tended to overwhelm the canons of decency and common good sense. But then one man’s food need not be everybody’s passion. The fact that they love it in London does not compel me not to loathe it in Ajegunle. or wherever. The result of over-tolerance has now been the removal of guilt and shame, in which the perverts have not only stepped “out of the closet”, but thrown out the enclosure to boot.

A vicious but dangerously obscure aspect of this malevolent practice is that the ranks of its practitioners are full of paedophiles who lure young children into the habit before the innocent ones are aware of what they are being put through. Even those who hold the most liberal views on the issue shrink where the plight of children, or even young adults, is concerned. Everyone desires a clean upbringing for their children, but can afford to be “modern” and liberal about others’. Or would you shrug off the tendency of any of your children being referred to as “AC/DC”?

I hope the law fulfils its purpose which is to keep the society less filthy. Even if child-marriage — with which the horrid act is compared by its apologists —is no less horrible, its eradication cannot be harnessed to the repudiation of same-sex marriage. They are too different misdeeds that should be corrected separately.

Those who are against the anti-gay law are in support of homosexual practice. That is the summary of the whole matter. I do not support,. and cannot condone, a man and another man, or a woman and another woman, cohabiting together as “husband and husband” …. or is it “wife and wife”? President Jonathan did the correct thing, in the correct manner, in this matter.

It is inopportune that the directive of the All Progressives Congress to its members in the National Assembly to block the passage of all executive bills became necessary at a time when the 2014 Budget is yet to be passed, because the process will definitely be adversely affected by the planned action. The necessity to accomplish that essential national priority though, should give the action more bite, just as it has already increased the controversy aroused by the APC proposal. But the season is just right with the rise of the opposition party’s population in the National Assembly.

The myopic stance of those who cannot, or refuse, to see the propriety of the APC’ s resolve to establish sanity in the conduct of the River State politics deserve little more than a heartfelt pity. The nation had been witnessing, in that State, a steady corrosion of the principles of law and order and the degradation of the ideals of democracy to which we all loudly subscribe.

Those in power were exercising it disdainfully to the detriment of the security and welfare of the people they were there to serve and protect. A number of good people raised their voices against the injustice and its dangers, but that was all they could raise. The issue could only be confronted by a force of equal potency, that is, another branch of government with a similar sinew that could dare to confront the tide of evil and create a subsidence.

The balance of power enshrined in the tripartite structure of our system of government happily provides for the option of one arm having the capacity to create a balance in such an unstable situation. That was in line with our desire published here last week, but the APC’s decision beat us to the punch by a clear margin of 24 hours. Nothing could be more welcome.

It is all about democracy.

It is like the freedom it sponsors and supports. As Martin Luther King said, you can’t have freedom piecemeal. “You have it all, or you are not free.” A country cannot have democracy in only some sections within its borders; it is either totally absorbed in that form of government or its people are being misgoverned. If anarchy is allowed to be foisted on the lives of the people of Rivers State by the agencies or instruments of government sponsorship, then Nigeria has ground the face of democracy in the dust.

It would appear that, at last, the Nigerian legislature has come of age. For a rare moment in our political history, a group of parliamentarians are set, on their own terrain, to oppose misrule with a purposeful action, and under the ambit of propriety. The directive of the All Progressives Congress, APC , to its members in the National Assembly, to block the passage of any executive bill is a momentous event at this time of our national history.

It should be seen as a well-considered move to direct the Jonathan administration to the path of good governance in a re-ordering of its political preferences. It contains legitimate contents of nationalistic ideals, no matter what advantages may be derived therefrom. The important effect is the improvement, already emerging, of the woeful situation in Rivers State.

Time out.