Backward Malawi -- and Australia

I was born there, which somehow makes it all worse.

Malawi has just sentenced a gay couple to 14 years in jail. Not for theft. Not for violence. Not for child abuse. For being gay. For being gay. Think about it. They've done no one any harm, but all the same, they're going to jail for 14 years. Extraordinary.

Before the missionaries arrived in Africa, homosexuality was a non-issue. As a child I would often see men walking hand-in-hand in the streets. But the relentless poison drip from the Christian-Fascists had turned the average African against homosexuality. In Uganda they're planning to execute gays for being gay. It has subsequently turned out that this push has been funded and encouraged by American fundamentalist churches, a more extreme version of what the Mormons did with prop 8 in California. In Malawi... Just look at the unseemly -- the unChristian -- joy on the faces of the bystanders in the picture from the Beeb. Ugh.

A barbarous, backward country. Nihil bonum ex Africa. But led into darkness by so-called Christian churches.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the rusted-on Catholics who dominate our government on left and right, want to turn back the clock on freedom. Senator Conroy of Labor (Minister for Communication) has proposed an internet censorship program which no one who knows anything about the technical operations of the internet thinks will work. Allegedly it is about child porn, and of course, if we can stop that, that would be wonderful. But the list of proscribed sites is to be kept secret (why?), and after Wikileaks published the preliminary list (which included a Queensland dentist, for God's sake) the founder of Wikileaks had his passport taken from him and was questioned about his computer hacking offences in 1991. Yes, that's right. 1991. We'll show you not to question authority! We'll keep dissent under wraps! We are the Thought-Police! Sung to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers.

Since the powers that be in Canberra appear to have several perfectly harmless gay sites on their blacklist, quite possibly your humble correspondent will be blacklisted too. I'll keep you posted. If I can.