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Begin New Search Political Geography Africa Content Type Special Report Publishing Institution The Other Foundation Publication Year within 10 Years Publication Year within 5 Years

1. Under Wraps: A survey of public attitudes to homosexuality and gender non-conformity in Malawi

Author:
Alan Msosa, Zione Jane Veronica Ntaba, MacDonald Sembereka, Eric Sambisa, Gift Trapence, Chiwoza Bandawe, Ndifanji Namacha, Eric Umar, Timothy Mtambo, Reverend Master Jumbe, Jones Hamburu Mawerenga, and Janet Mwandira
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Other Foundation
Abstract:
This report is called Under Wraps because it shows that Malawi has a comparatively high LGBTI population that is known by a significant number of ordinary Malawians to be socially vulnerable – but this reality remains hidden in Malawi’s social consciousness. Despite strong social values and aspirations of equality, non-violence, and belonging in a community, the majority of Malawians restrict LGBTI people from being openly recognized and safely included in families, communities, workplaces, cultural practices, and public policies. However, a large number of Malawians are thinking differently about discrimination, even the majority in relation to recognition of intersex people and violence towards LGBTI people.
Topic:
Public Opinion, Discrimination, LGBT+, Society, Homophobia, and Transphobia
Political Geography:
Africa and Malawi

2. Taking a Stand: A call to action by the church against injustice towards LGBTI people

Author:
Allan Boesak
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Other Foundation
Abstract:
At its 2008 General Synod the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa considered a report on the church’s stand on the question of sexual orientation and nonconformity. That was a moment, in my view, in which this church, who had declared apartheid, its biblical and theological justification a heresy and led the ecumenical movement in doing the same; who in formulating in 1982, and adopting in 1986 the Belhar Confession as a new standard of faith, faced its greatest challenge since confronting apartheid. Central to the Confession are our unity in Christ; the reconciliation wrought by Christ, and the justice demanded by God. These three things. I was the convenor of that task team and presenter of the report at the synod. It was one of those utterly shattering, fundamentally life-changing experiences. After a hostile, and theologically disturbingly crude, debate, the synod rejected the report, its contents, its conclusions and its recommendations calling for justice for LGBTQI persons and referred the report for reconsideration. Even though the words, “another, more anti-gay report” were deleted from the amended version of the original proposal, the intention could not have been clearer. What was striking and shocking, even though hardly unknown in debates on this matter it seems, was the stridently hostile tone of the debate, the blatant homophobic language that dominated the discussion all through the afternoon. Speakers who took the floor did not even attempt to disguise their contempt. Some spoke openly of LGBTQI persons as “animals”, “not created by God”; of bestiality and of LGBTQI persons in one breath, all of which as being a “scandal” and “stain” upon the church. It was an experience that had left me shaken and disoriented: how could the same church that took such a strong stand against apartheid and racial oppression, gave such inspired and courageous leadership from its understanding of the Bible and the radical Reformed tradition; that had, in the middle of the state of emergency of the 1980s with its unprecedented oppression, its desperate violence and nameless fear given birth to the Belhar Confession that spoke of reconciliation, justice, unity and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, now display such blatant hatred and hypocrisy, deny so vehemently for God’s LGBTQI children the solidarity we craved for ourselves in our struggle for racial justice, bow down so easily at the altar of prejudice and bigotry?
Topic:
Human Rights, Religion, Christianity, LGBT+, Justice, and Advocacy
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa