Government proposes law to ban same-sex marriage

The Nigerian government has proposed a law to ban homosexual relations and same-sex marriage, in what the justice minister says is an attempt to avoid such practices spreading to the country from the West. Justice Minister Bayo Ojo announced the draft law this week, saying it is in response to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s concern over homosexual relations and marriage encroaching on Africa’s most populous nation. “Basically it is un-African to have a [sexual] relationship with the same sex. If you look at the holy books, the Bible and the Koran, it is prohibited,” Ojo told reporters on Wednesday. The bill would make engaging in homosexual relations and entering into a same-sex marriage offences punishable by five years imprisonment. Priests or other clerics or anyone helping to arrange such a union would also be subject to a five-year jail sentence. The proposed law would also ban movements for promoting gay rights, the justice minister said. An on-line article from the newspaper Nigeria First said, "This progressive legislation is expected to put a check on homosexuality and lesbianism, a deviant social behaviour fast gaining acceptance in Western countries." Gay rights activists say the proposed law would be an utter breach of human rights. “We totally condemn this,” one rights activist who declined to be named told IRIN. “We are Nigerians and we are humans. This is about human rights. We are here and we are part of Nigeria.” The activist said the Nigerian government was likely troubled and dismayed when a gay and lesbian rights group made a declaration at a recent HIV/AIDS conference in the capital, Abuja, urging fuller recognition of the needs of gay men and women. Opposition to gay relations is deep-rooted in Nigeria, with the bulk of the north’s Muslims and the south’s Christians united in their hostility toward homosexuality. In twelve states in the north that began implementing strict Islamic Shari’ah law in 2000, gay sex is punishable by stoning to death - though this penalty has yet to be applied. The government’s move to criminalise same-sex marriage and homosexual relations comes as the country's Anglican Church is leading global opposition to same-sex marriage and ordination of gay priests in the West. The 17-million-strong membership of the church in Nigeria is second in size only to that of the Church of England.