Swaziland gay hate MP Aaron Sotja Dladla is gaining
support for his campaign to have homosexuality banned in the kingdom.
Last week he told the Swazi House of Assembly a law
should be put in place to ‘deal with’ what he called ‘this mushrooming
anti-social’ behaviour of gays and lesbians.
Now, the Weekend
Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, reports thatresidents in his constituency, ‘have encouraged him to move a motion in
parliament calling for the banning of homosexual tendencies’.
Dladla, a member of the fringe church group Jericho Red
Gown, restated his stance against homosexuality to the newspaper. He has made a
number of public statements expressing hatred of homosexuals.
Although the mainstream media in Swaziland is reporting Dladla’s
growing campaign uncritically, he is being attacked for his extremism on social
networks. The Swaziland Solidarity Network has called for a new law to ban hatespeech.
Dladla is not alone among Swazi parliamentarians to
oppose homosexuality. In June 2012, Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini toldjournalists that same-sex marriages would not be allowed in the kingdom.
He was responding
to a question about the increasing acceptability of such marriages across the
world, including neighbouring South Africa.
He said, ‘It will take time before we allow this to happen
and include it in the country’s laws. We are not even ready to consider it.’
Ironically, King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last
absolute monarch, insists that Swaziland is close to becoming a ‘first-world
country’. Clearly, he and his supporters are on the wrong side of history. Only
this week the United States re-elected Barack Obama, an outspoken supporter of
gay marriages, President of the United States. Obama defeated Mitt Romney,
himself a member of a religious sect that, like the traditional Swazis,
believes in polygamous marriages for heterosexuals, but no marriage at all for
gays and lesbians.
The Americans also voted in favour of same-sex marriages
in local votes on the subject.
See also
CALL FOR LAW TO BAN HATE SPEECH
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