LAW, RELIGION, AND SAME-SEX RELATIONS IN AFRICA

Some years back, around 2013, I was asked to write an article on the uses of the Bible in African law. Researching references to the Bible and biblical law across the African continent, I soon learned that, besides support for arguments by a few states in favor of declaring themselves “Christian nations,” the main use was in emerging debates over homosexuality and same-sex relationships—almost exclusively to condemn those relationships. In January 2013, the newly formed African Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ACLARS) held its first international conference at the University of Ghana Legon. There, African sexuality debates emerged forcefully in consideration of a paper by Sylvia Tamale, then dean of the Makarere University School of Law in Uganda, who argued pointedly, “[P]olitical Christianity and Islam, especially, have constructed a discourse that suggests that sexuality is the key moral issue on the continent today, diverting attention from the real critical moral issues for the majority of Africans . . . . Employing religion, culture and the law to flag sexuality as the biggest moral issue of our times and dislocating the real issue is a political act and must be recognised as such.”