Sleeper Awake!

Sometimes it feels like you are the only one who sees the world for what it is, while it seems that all those around you are blissfully unaware - not knowing and not caring to know things that could make a difference in solving problems or bringing about changes necessary to improve things. One of the catch phrases I remember from the original Dune movie in 1984 was "sleeper awake!" and it describes exactly how I feel today.

Why?

Despite appearances presented to the outside world, South Africa - and Africa - is a human rights mess, and especially so on the front of Pink rights.

Viva Secularism, Viva!

Many people today have moved beyond the confusion caused by mixing religion and affairs of the real world. 

 

Unfortunately there are still many people who cannot tell the two apart. 

 

To them there is no difference between politics, civil affairs, daily life and their own personal religious views. And for some unfathomable reason, whenever it is pointed out to them that they are being unfair for using their personal religious opinions to detract from the civil rights or equalities of others, they start whining childishly that it is they who are being picked on, and not their victims.

The Little Joys Of Being Trans In SA

I went to renew my driver's license today. Oh, you have no idea. It was an adventure. 

 

Funny, you would think that once you were found competent enough to drive a car, or own a gun, and not having any serious misdemeanors logged against your name - that you wouldn't need to keep reapplying for various permits? It is an interesting innovation in South Africa, figuring a way to make people pay for the same damn thing over and over again - and paying more each time. What fun.

So off to the merry traffic department I went.

Free Hate Kills

You believe in freedom of speech, don't you? How about freedom of religion? You believe in that? I know I do. But every so often there are people who come along demanding that some forms of freedom of speech or expression of their religious beliefs are actually "hate speech" - like those nasty deviants and trolls, the homosexuals. Know what I mean? 

No?

Well let me tell you. A few years ago Uganda (yes - that Uganda, the little country in central Africa that most people in the Western world need to look for on a map to see that it is an actual place and not some fictional setting in a novel or a suburb somewhere in Soweto) started cleaning house and tidying up all the loose ends. 

Broad-Spectrum Anti-Idiotics

"Before Carol was a Carol they were a David, strange but true. Make some hard cash and any transexual can become a woman."

This is broadly speaking the comment someone made about somebody else in a discussion I was part of recently. 

 

They had it in for somebody whom they didn't agree with on some or other matter, and went around posting articles and comments venting their dislike for them - and in each case pointing out the detail that they were "transsexual", only to later have it pointed out to them that they had it completely wrong - "Carol" as it turned out, was intersex, not transsexual.

Personal differences aside, it made me wonder why some people find it necessary to pick out a particular characteristic of somebody they don't get on with - and then use that as an insult and a judgment, or even a blunt instrument - at the same time insulting and judging all other people who have that feature in common too.

That is like saying "Joe Soap, who is an Aquarius, is an incredibly bad cook - and therefore all other Aquariuses are too". Make any sense?

Happy New Year

When I sat down to write today's article, I started off thinking about last year and all the things I felt good about. It's my first article for the new year... and then I thought about last year, and the year before that, and all the things that p'd me off during that time - and about how many of them are still applicable and have been carried over like remainder in some obscene parody of Sub - A maths.

So Who Is Erroll Naidoo?

Over a number of days recently, I was engaged in an email debate with Errol Naidoo of the so-called "Family Policy Institute", based in Cape Town. 

 

The reason for the debate? 

 

Mr. Naidoo is leading an attack on Cape Town Tourism over its support for the Mother City Queer Project, and the use of a catch-phrase advertising Cape Town as "the Gay Capital of South Africa". He also issued another call to fellow Christian fundamentalists and homophobes to target entities which he frequently accuses of "promoting the homosexual agenda".

In the course of this debate, Mr Naidoo played the card which has become expected of him - that is, he pretends to be nothing more than a "concerned citizen", a "pastor" and "faithful Christian" who is nobly "standing" for "Christian biblical values" while "doing the Lord's work". In addition, he said he "doesn't hate gay people" (despite the proof that he actually said the complete opposite only last year), in fact he says he has a "good relationship" with one gay man who has been his barber for 30 years, and whom he invites to family celebrations.

 

Yeah, right.

At the same time, he has been using his own religious views to fight against the equality and civil rights of our community since the early 1990's, and is probably the most outspoken and visceral opponent of our human and civil rights in South Africa. Well, aside from that other guy on Facebook last year who claimed to be calling for the return of the death penalty because he was a Christian and believed gay people should die for their "sin". Wow, seri-haas. 

 

Not exactly good PR material, that one.