Homophobia is Political
On 29th July, when a story broke on how Dr. Kavinda Jayawardana, a candidate of the SJB for Gampaha District, had made strongly homophobic statements in an interview (he “apologized” for it 4 hours later), I suspected that he was playing to his (predominantly Catholic) gallery and not necessarily representative of his personal views (even though he claimed it was his view — @1:20 in the video).
I think the reason the Old Testament is homophobic (even the etymology of sodomy and sodomite are from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah) is because there were homophobic elements in the society of the time, and for them — as it is today, as I will explain later — homophobia was a political tool. And the authors of the OT used it to lend authority to that view, and to create an identity that would be attractive to the “market” who were otherwise happy with worshiping their own gods. And that has lent credibility to homophobic arguments today, especially within Abrahamic religions.
But as we can see in Sri Lanka, it is possible to reject the influence of Christianity and Islam while still promulgating the homophobic values imported during colonial times. I don’t know if Dr. Kavinda’s claim of the lack of any mention of it in the Mahawamsa is true, but that would also suggest a lack of homophobia then. Certainly I am unable to find anything in Buddhism that suggests that homosexuality is undesirable (or at least, more undesirable than heterosexuality). So how was Buddhist Maithripala Sirisena able to insult Buddhist Mangala Samaraweera by calling him a butterfly?
I think this is because homosexuals (or broadly, LGBTIQ) are a convenient bogeyman for fear-based politics. To be the defender of the people, you must have an enemy to defend them against. We may even be conditioned to find homosexuality repulsive because of the notion that sex is something duty and only allowed for procreation, and any scripture that supports that view is a welcome boost to authority. It’s really not very different to anti-Semitism and the caricature of Jewish money lenders charging usury and depriving the hard working people of their dues, except that homosexuality is more scary because of the (false) prospect of them corrupting your innocent children and converting them away from the “straight” and narrow. It’s also convenient that they are a minority (statistically speaking) without much power to fight back. So LGBTIQ people suffer oppression not because politicians are necessarily homophobic but because homophobia attracts votes.
On the other side of the divide, when the NPP makes strong statements of LGBTIQ Rights, are they doing so from conviction, or is it also a political counter-statement?
In this landscape, GR choice of drug dealers as his Jihad is interesting — is it because he’s accepting that homophobia’s political utility is diminishing with the shifting perceptions towards LGBTIQ rights, or because he has to pander to his National Security vote-base, or because its easier to sanction summary justice against drug dealers like what is happening in the Philippines, or because a stronger military can be justified by the war on Drugs, or because its easier to plant drugs on a political opponent than to portray him as a closet homosexual (as seems to have happened to Dr. Kavinda), or some combination of all of these?
You may also be interested in my other writing on Education, Politics/Power, Ethics/Philosophy/Humanism, Parenting and “Lost in Translation”
