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

The issue of sexual orientation is one that affects everyone. It cuts across all human barriers such as race, religion, gender and socio-economic standing. The right to live one’s sexual orientation; freedom from discrimination, harassment and stigmatisation as a result of this are therefore rights and issues of concern for everyone.

In various discussions with friends, I have found sexual orientation to be an emotional and contentious issue. What I think people fail to realise is that while the majority of the human population is heterosexual, that does not make heterosexuality ‘normal’. Thus making homosexuality abnormal. I have found that many people regard homosexuality as a choice,  or something one does to get attention. This is evidenced by the many misconceptions surrounding homosexuality such as people being gay because they have not met the right man or woman; being seduced into being gay and that gay people were sexually abused as children. A look to our closest genetic relations in nature, Bonobos (a species of Chimpanzees), will show that even when survival is the key drive, they do still display homosexual behaviour. Moreover, the Human Genome Project gave rise to evidence of a gay gene. Meaning that homosexuality is not a choice.

The law is silent about witchcraft yet people believe that it exists and is affecting them on a daily basis. In Zimbabwe for example, more than ninety percent of the people believe that their lives are in one way or the other being tampered with through witchcraft. However once one claims to have been bewitched by someone the present law punishes the victim and does not bother to establish fact from the allegations. This points to a view that there is no such thing as witchcraft. Surprisingly people are losing their wealth, beasts, goats and cash through community cleansing activities, like trough the Tsikamutandas, other traditional healers and prophets.

Now that the country is running towards a democratically made constitution, what will people say with regard to witchcraft? Will the law still be made to remain silent about this issue? If not, who will be empowered to physically preside over such offenses created in the spiritual realms and be assured to live there after?

The problem is how to prove the allegations of witchcraft beyond reasonable doubt. Whereas a postmortem can prove a case of murder, no technology can prove witchcraft activities. Even if three n’angas are consulted, they never agree among themselves. Some think that the n’angas are to blame for all the cases around witchcraft as they are the suppliers of the magical tricks. Should the law ban the n’angas then? To what extent have the n’angas contributed to moulding the present day Zimbabwean culture?

Some feel that it is high time the constitution of the country does something about witchcraft because of all the stories around like people seen with goblins, naked and performing unfamiliar rituals and some killing each other on allegations of bewitching one other.  Some feel that witchcraft is of the spiritual world, and no earthly law can stop or regulate it unless spiritual means are employed. This gives rise to the question of how the so called n’angas and prophets who see beyond the naked eye are important in the present day society.  What about the role of the church?

Will all people join the debate?

Occasional Kubatana blogger Fungai Machirori recently posted a very interesting comment on a health listserv in response to an online conversation about who should take responsibility for HIV prevention. I kind of thought it was a no-brainer. Individuals should of course. But then again there are men involved and condoms and men in general go together like Mugabe and Democracy.

Here’s Fungai for you:

Ensuring power to every “i” Fungai Machirori

Last year, South Africa developed a remarkable graphic to accompany its World AIDS Day campaign message: a graphic consisting entirely of a myriad letter “i”s that together made up the shape of South Africa’s map.

The tagline that accompanied the graphic read “I am responsible. We are responsible. South Africa is taking responsibility.”

What each of those little “i”s stood for was a South African; an individual taking responsibility for adopting health-promoting behaviours that would ultimately yield the collective national responsibility needed for an effective response to the urgency of HIV and AIDS.

I give this example because I feel it is particularly relevant to the topic at hand – whose responsibility it is to prevent HIV.

I believe that only once every individual is able to identify himself or herself as that “i” with the highest levels of self-efficacy, or confidence in one’s own ability to take responsible action, can we realise a significant change to the emergency that is the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

Building that self-efficacy encompasses creating a range of competences, from the basic ability to understand what HIV and AIDS are, to comprehending the implications of HIV infection or re-infection, as well as the benefits of preventing such infection, all the way to being able to overcome the many barriers that may exist as impediments to positive behaviour change.

Make no mistake, this is no easy process. Because we are all individuals of differing backgrounds and circumstances, our competencies, and the rates at which these can be developed will differ.

What levels of self-efficacy will a 16-year-old girl given to her sister’s widow as a replacement wife (knowing well that her sister died of a long and mysterious illness) have to demand an HIV test even if she knows about the virus and its effects, but is bound, by family tradition, to become this man’s wife without questioning?

What self-efficacy can a baby, still in his mother’s womb, speak of if his mother never receives antenatal services and does not discover her own positive HIV status until after her baby is born and already infected?

How then do we ensure power to every “i”?

A blanket approach to HIV and AIDS programming is definitely not the right way. Insensitive messaging that fails to take into consideration that we are all at different levels of literacy, understanding and openness about the collective and individual impact of the pandemic is more detrimental than helpful as it only achieves the churning out of impersonal, and therefore, inaccessible content.

Some people still just need to hear the basics – what HIV is, how it brings on AIDS, how it is transmitted and how it is prevented.

And messages and programmes for these individuals need to be tailored in an attractive, interactive fashion that eliminates pedagogy by welcoming debate, discussion and personal negotiation.

Also, we need to stop thinking only in conventional formats because quite honestly, far too many of the information-rich booklets and CD-ROMs dished out generously by well-meaning organisations are NOT being read or utilised.

I remember looking on in horror as a neighbour used the pages of an HIV prevention book I had given him to get a fire going in his backyard.

Noticing my anguish, he apologised but told me that there was no other practical use for the book beyond the one he had found.

“Thankfully, I have toilet paper,” he joked.

I went away wondering how many other people might feel this way about Information and Education Communication (IEC) materials that they feel have no resonance with them.

We need to be doing things differently, dynamically and determinedly all the time within an environment that is constantly changing, but at the same time staying very much the same.

Also, we need to think creatively about how to overcome the many socio-cultural and economic barriers to information dissemination and knowledge assimilation; how to jump over those internal walls that cement ideas within people’s minds that saying “not yet” or demanding a condom during sex is taboo and unforgivable; how to ensure that we are catering to communities and societies and individuals at their points of need, and not at the points that we estimate on their behalf; how to be relevant.

In short, how do we ensure that when an individual makes a decision that can have an impact on the state of their health, he or she is fully equipped with the artillery of internalised practical and practicable information?

At the same time as we seek to answer this question, we must focus attention on the dire need to strengthen our HIV service delivery systems to the point where people can access the different prevention, treatment, care and support packages that they require in an efficient, effective and professional(in terms of the health service providers) manner.

Our role as programmers, advocates, researchers and role models is two-fold: firstly, we must take personal responsibility for our own behaviours ensuring that they are positive and health-promoting.

Too many jokes abound about how any workshop that involves HIV programmers and advocates degenerates, after hours, into a ‘sex shop’.

This is the unfortunate badge of embarrassment that many associate our sector with, particularly as it identifies us as obvious hypocrites who subscribe to the mantra, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Only once we are right in our own ways can we strike a cord with our audiences so that we may pass the mantle of responsibility on to them, to capacitate them to answer emphatically, whenever asked whose responsibility it is to prevent HIV, that indeed it is “i”.

Imagine if we could draw out a map, not just of South Africa, but of every nation in our region from the pledge made by every “i”, every person putting their hand up to say, “I am responsible to prevent HIV”.

This map would certainly mark the beginnings of a new Africa.

This is a bit personal but I sit here right now battling in my head what to do next in view of a conversation I just had with a very close relative of mine.  First she texts me, Please call urgently. I immediately start panicking thinking something is wrong, however I succeed in making that call. She wants to take her two sons aged 19 and 22 to Harare Hospital to get circumcised, so they will need a ride from there. I have no problem delivering them to and from the hospital. When I put down the phone initially, I think nothing of it. Then it hit me. Knowing how overbearing this particular relative (call her aunt Mabel) can get – there was a huge possibility that the two boys were being forced to go through this procedure. So I call her back to find out more and I wasn’t off the mark. That has become the new policy for the boys as long as they live under her roof and eat her food. In talking to her further I find out that this circumcision business – which in my books is just another one of the latest but fleeting donor fashion fads – has had a huge appeal on her and her colleagues. No matter what I tried to explain to her, I could sense that in a way Aunt Mabel believes that this one procedure is what could spare her boys a debilitating death ‘in these HIV days’.  I have begun to feel like such an accomplice to a heinous crime. Most of my adult life I have sought to protest against violation of human rights and now here I am caught in a conspiracy to take my cousins for circumcision against their will. If Aunt Mabel was going to be this cruel, I wonder why she didn’t just get it done when the boys were still babies, without a care and not in a position to make decisions for themselves. Surely that option was available long before then?

Although I understand and appreciate the benefits of male circumcision, I feel that efforts to dispel the lurking notion that this procedure prevents HIV infection have not been nearly as frantic as has been it’s marketing as a prevention method. A lot of people, including my aunt sincerely believe that if there is so much noise around this subject, there must be some immense life saving benefit to it. And there are in fact some immense benefits, just not entirely life saving. The watered down explanation that circumcision reduces chances of HIV infection, although the risk is still far too high and that condoms and safe sex must still be used is confusing a lot of people. I also think the concept of male circumcision has become a tad overrated.  And I can only but imagine how many young boys out there are meekly being led by overbearing mothers like sheep to the slaughter to get circumcised against their wishes.

Although the risks outweigh the benefits, I’m sure that if I were a guy, I’d appreciate having the final decision lying with me thank you, and circumcision, like all surgical procedures, has a risk of complications and adverse effects that include bleeding, infection, surgical error, injury to the penis, and adverse reactions to anesthesia, not to mention the 4-6 weeks of agony that male adults have to live with while waiting for the wound to heal.  I am also made to understand that foreskin removal desensitizes the penis head, and contrary to popular belief, sex is less stimulating compared to those who have their skins intact. In essence, the main benefit of foreskin removal is hygiene and aesthetics. I am pretty sure given the full info that a lot of men would then rather keep what God gave them. This is however not to say that it is a bad idea. Studies have shown that indeed, chances of circumcised men developing urinary tract infections and their female partners having cervical cancer are greatly reduced.

A friend of mine thinks that I am probably fretting needlessly and that the boys might actually be interested in undergoing this procedure. Perhaps they would like to be circumcised, but I doubt under such circumstances. In any case, I can imagine them now all grown up and feeling that they were mutilated and deprived of an important structure of their original anatomy without their consent. A lot of men are just as obsessed about this as those who clamor to be circumcised. It has also been suggested that the operation may cause psychological trauma. It is therefore a good thing that facilities offering this service provide counseling first. I think they must also have their clients sign consent forms and that in the case where they are forced but do not want to go through with the procedure, they can just come out without having it done and through doctor-patient confidentiality, their parents would never find out.

In the green-filtered sunlight through the closing canopy
the rain washed garden sparkles with joy

Today
people standing on the freezing streets of Copenhagen
hold candles of hope for the planet
whilst the world leaders haggle about responsibility
in warm lit rooms

candles burning on the streets
for a belief in a planet and a spirit of caring that is wider than themselves

This has been a long year in Zimbabwe
walking the steps of survival
at a time when the work of healing and community building and empowerment
has been handicapped by lack of funded support
and the stark reality of giving up /closing down
has had to be faced
or to try to continue their work
holding on to the web of good intentions

For the last months of this year,
in the face of disaster
the Tree of Life was held in place by a web of love
of witnessing and donations from individuals from all over the planet
who dared  to care . . .

without them we would have lost our step

to all those people we would like to express our deepest gratitude
for caring about something that is wider than yourselves

With these donations we are able to keep the rural workshops going.