Shared with us via an email from a Kubatana subscriber:

On her radio show, Dr Laura  Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US  resident, which was posted on the Internet.  It’s funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr.  Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements  of God’s Laws and how to follow  them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states  that I may possess slaves, both male and  female, provided they are purchased from  neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims  that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can  you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in  Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you  think would be a fair price  for her?

3. I know that I  am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in  her period of menstrual uncleanliness -  Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I  have tried asking, but most women  take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it  creates a pleasing odor for the Lord -  Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors.  They claim the odor is not pleasing to them.  Should I smite them?

5. I have a  neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus  35:2. clearly states he should be put to  death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is  an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t  agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of  abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I  wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to  be 20/20, or is there some wiggle- room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the  hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27.  How should they die?

9. I  know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of  two different kinds of thread  (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to  curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the  trouble of  getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.  20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such  matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your  adoring fan.

James M. Kauffman,  Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. of  Curriculum, Instruction, and Special  Education University of  Virginia

My aunt’s 12 year-old daughter was recently cornered in a secluded little room by the caretaker of their block of flats where they stay in Avondale. He tried to rape her. Thankfully she managed to escape unscathed, but she is still reeling from the effects of the trauma associated with that experience.

My family has gone through a frustrating episode over this and probably writing about it is my way of dealing with it. Attempted rape in my book and the book of our law is a criminal offence that is (or should be) punishable by long imprisonment. The mother reported the case to the police who at the time swiftly acted and condemned the caretaker to the cells. Less than 48 hours later, the man was back in the yard, going about his business and acting like all was normal. This was quite baffling and it soon became apparent that a few palms had probably been greased.

Realizing the danger of having this man lurking around his victim and the other children, the residents committee unanimously decided to relieve him of his duties as caretaker. But at the moment, the man is not only carrying on as if nothing has changed, he has also harassed the chairperson of the residents committee and slashed her maize crop after she served him with a letter of dismissal. He has also threatened my aunt with unspecified action. In short, the man is a dangerously loose canon and I shudder to think of what he is capable of doing. My aunt has tried going back to the police who have informed her that the assailant paid an admission of guilt fine and could not be detained outside certain ‘specific’ charges. I know it must be devastatingly traumatic for her because the man who fondled and groped her child is still around perhaps promising more, and nobody seems interested in doing anything about it, especially the police.

In a desperate move, my aunt has approached numerous local child protection organizations; a lot of whom have not been able to do anything much for her either because they claim to be overwhelmed.  While I appreciate that obtaining justice for an abused child is not an automatic process in Zimbabwe, it is still quite disheartening that none of these organizations have taken a real interest in dealing with this particular case. My relatives have literally been tossed from one organization to the other and the kid has probably suffered even more trauma from having her case rejected from all sides. Meanwhile she lives in real fear of the moron that tried to rape her.

A few weeks ago, a dejected father whose daughter was raped by a school’s grounds man attended one of our monthly thematic discussions, which focused on abuse in schools. His story was also very sad because the grounds man was being permitted to continue working as normal, lurking around all the small children as the case was still being deliberated on. The father could not obtain justice for his child too, thanks to a lot of red tape and the perennial bureaucratic processes one has to go through to get closure in such cases. His daughter was also denied a place at a nearby school in Marimba because the headmistress said she did not want any ‘problems’. I have heard of several more cases like these – where the perpetrator gets off scot free. It is sad to note that a lot of the organizations representing children’s rights in Zimbabwe are toothless bulldogs who really aren’t doing much on the ground except justifying their existence sufficiently enough to extract rent from the next donor. I know that sounds really accusatory, but people like my aunt and the man whose child was molested by a grounds man and the children themselves, are meant to be amongst the intended beneficiaries justifying the existence of such organizations and their programming.

So if organizations that purportedly work to represent children’s rights are constantly too busy and keep referring cases to each other to no avail, then I guess they are not doing enough. And I don’t know what’s even sadder – that they are too overwhelmed (which says a lot about the levels of child abuse in the country) to pay attention to some cases or that for most of them, they feel that their hands are tied and they cannot actually do much outside what our callous police dictate.

It is my hope that one day, our social services, child protection civic society and the court system may actually work and function to protection our most valuable asset as a country – the children. Probably there is a need for a coordinated response that achieves real impact among these organizations so that the constituents they serve are clear of where to go when in need. In other countries, when a child tells an adult that he or she has been sexually abused, it is taken seriously and a lot is done to protect that child from even seeing the person while the case is being investigated.

I look forward to the day when no matter how complex a case is, or how busy they are, no abused child will ever be turned away from a child protection organization.

Rural women in Zimbabwe contribute immensely to the economic development of the country through agrarian development both at subsistence and commercial levels.  Women make up the largest proportion of farm laborers and their role in utilizing land through crop production, livestock care for the sustenance of families can not be undervalued.

The recently held National Constitutional Conference on Women’s Access and Control of Land and other Natural resources was a crucial event as the majority of rural women in Zimbabwe (86%) depend on land for their livelihoods. Women from different parts of the country converged in Harare to review the current status and challenges faced by women in land ownership, access and control in Zimbabwe. The Conference agreed that Section 23 of the current Constitution needs to be repealed as it permits discriminatory customary laws that limit women’s ownership, access to and control of land.  It was also agreed that The Rural Land Act and the Agricultural Land Settlement Act must be amended to provide clear, non-discriminatory criteria for the allocation of resettlement land.

It is disappointing to note that women continue to have limited access to and control over land, a key productive resource for women’s empowerment. Despite their contribution to food security for the nation, women own fewer productive assets than their male counterparts.  As noted by the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement during the conference, the majority of women with access to land do so through marriage. In communal areas, women do not own land in their own right but through their husbands. As a result of this limited ownership of land, women derive fewer benefits from proceeds of their labor and have no decision-making power in the household. In most instances, cheques for farm produce sales that are in the name of male landholders have been spent without the spouse’s involvement.

Patriarchy plays a huge role in undermining women’s rights to land and other natural resources. Men dominate land redistribution structures like land commission and committees and tend to allocate land to fellow men during land distribution exercises. There is need to revisit the key procedures in land allocation to ensure non discrimination of women.

If Zimbabwe is to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular, Goal 1, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, women’s rights to land should be prioritized. As an agro based economy, there is need to ensure equity between women and men in the allocation of productive resources. Government’s commitment should go beyond simply putting policies but monitoring how women’s ownership and control of land and other natural resources is taking place on the ground.

Last night I watched an interview with Sir Ian McKellen, the celebrated British actor, on Hard Talk, one of the BBC’s most popular programmes. Ian said that he only “came out” when he was 49 because there was so much violence and bigotry surrounding the issue of homosexuality. His advice to young gay people is to come out as soon as possible because being open and honest about who you are will, more often than not, enhance your life.

I was curious about the amount of time the interviewer spent on Ian’s sexuality rather than other aspects of life, like his career, his beliefs and his general experience of the world. Gay people are so much more than their sexual orientation. Why is it that gay people are peppered with questions about their sexual orientation when heterosexuals are not? When did you ever see Meryl Streep being questioned about what made her straight or how being straight impacts on her life?

Just today I got an unsolicited email from an organisation in Zimbabwe selling a product. Their product is a “a publication containing behaviour statistics of a teenage behaviour survey conducted in 2009 in all major towns of Zimbabwe”. The survey was compiled based on ten questions. One of the questions reads as follows:

10.   Are there any promiscuous sexual activities, homosexuals, drug addicts amongst the Zimbabwean youths?

I just wrote to the authors of the report saying that I’m a lesbian and that I find it unacceptable that they lump homosexuality with promiscuous sexual activities and drug addiction. Of course I should clarify that I see nothing wrong with safe promiscuous activity and safe drug use. But the agenda behind their inclusion of homosexuality along with addiction and promiscuity, is sinister in my view. Perhaps I’m wrong but I sense a witch hunt of young gay people with a view to fixing them or punishing them.

Yes, some Zimbabwean youth are gay – I was young once! It’s about time that people realised that the expression of sexuality is not confined to heterosexuality. We have an organisation called Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) in Zimbabwe that has a broad and diverse membership of gays and lesbians.

Our communities should be embracing diversity and making it safe for young people to express their true selves.

If you have the time and energy to question the motivation behind surveying homosexual activity please write to them at info@thebehaviourreport.com

I’ve just signed the Avaaz petition protesting the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda.

They’re at just over 300,000 signatures already – but their goal is to have at least 350,000 signatures by Friday, when they plan to deliver the petition to President Museveni.

This bill is easily the most intolerant, prejudicial, retrogressive piece of legislation I have seen in a long time.  Provisions include the death sentence for “repeat” offenders; imprisonment for landlords who rent to homosexuals and those who do not report people whom they believe are homosexual; and extradition capacity to prosecute gay Ugandans living overseas.

Sign the petition, and spread the word.

Downtown Harare on Valentine’s Day was livened up the vibrant sistaz and bruthaz of Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA). Saturday shoppers and the odd tourist (we saw TWO, imagine, I felt like rounding them up and putting them on exhibit because they’ve become so rare) milling around Unity Square were treated to the sight of three converging groups of WOZA demonstrators. WOZA gave out plastic red roses and fliers to passing motorists, flower sellers, ice cream vendors, street cleaners (we’ve got a couple of those as well) and pedestrians. Without exception the WOZA literature was gobbled up by members of the general public who seldom get to see anything besides the state-controlled crap that’s put out by the GNU. In fact, on Saturday morning WOZA chose the front steps of the Herald House as their site of struggle. No doubt their choice was guided by the need to condemn the daily diet of propaganda that the Herald produces. The WOZA demonstration lasted about 15 minutes. I kept on expecting the riot police armed with their “tiger” and batons to storm the gathering but they didn’t. A big pom pom to WOZA for continuing to demand meaningful democratic change in Zimbabwe and for testing freedoms like the right to protest peacefully.