As predictable as sensationalist coverage of the ”lesbian murder trial” recently was the reaction from conservative religious groups to the verdict.
No sooner had magistrate Rita Willemse found Haneline Botha and her partner, Engeline de Nysschen, guilty than the African Christian Democratic Party released a statement headed ”Lesbian couple murder boy shows moral decay [sic]”.
It was followed by another from Doctors for Life International (DFL), headed ”Children endangered by homosexual lifestyles”. At that point I realised that, like the Peter Finch character in Network, ”I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.”
Despite projecting their prejudice as moral concern, what the ACDP, the DFL and the like are doing is using a single case to try to overturn our country’s Constitution — and using terminology that sails perilously close to hate speech.
DFL, which claims to represent more than 1 000 medical doctors and specialists in South Africa, said: ”Cases of child abuse at the hand of lesbian couples are by no means unusual, although few are as extreme as this. There is a substantial amount of scientific evidence to show that there is a significantly higher amount of violence within lesbian relationships. A higher incidence of child abuse is also reported amongst these relationships.”
The main ”evidence” for these claims, forwarded by DFL’s head, Bola Omoniyi, turns out to be a 2002 survey examining custody disputes involving a homosexual parent in 29 American states between 1956 and 1991.
Eighty-two percent of the homosexual parents in these cases, as compared with 18% of the heterosexual parents, were apparently recorded as having poor character. And of the recorded harm to children, which included molestation and physical abuse, 97% was apparently attributed to the homosexual parents.
Another source cites the statistic that ”57% of 757 sexually abused boys had been sexually involved with their father”.
None of the studies concerns lesbians. And the study does not appear to be about the behaviour of parents in same-sex unions, but about child molestation, sometimes by father of son, within heterosexual relationships.
In fact, if any inference can be drawn from the DFL’s ”evidence”, it is that children should be kept far away from men, particularly their fathers.
I am a lesbian — and I abhor child abuse. I believe Botha and De Nysschen deserve to suffer the full weight of the law for murdering Botha’s four-year-old son.
I feel no sympathy for them, particularly as the supposed reason for the violence that led to the child’s death was his refusal to call De Nysschen ”daddy”. The general practice is for the non-biological parent in lesbian households to be called by her first name.
Although my partner and I have no children, several gay friends do — and this court case has been one of the main topics of conversation in recent weeks.
Intertwined with condemnation of the pair is fear: fear that their children might come under attack in the playground from other kids who have overheard adults discussing the case; that negative media coverage may dissuade gays from adopting children; that the media coverage and pressure from groups like the ACDP and DFL may prevent Parliament from amending the Marriage Act to include same-sex unions.
Underlying it all is a fear familiar to all vulnerable minorities: that because of the actions of a few, the entire group will be victimised. For, despite our Constitution, moffie-bashing is an enduring South African sport.
And this is why I’m so angry. The DFL, with its fraudulent statistics, and the ACDP, by urging constitutional amendments to ”protect the sanctity of marriage, rather than amend the definition of marriage to include sinful same-sex unions”, are fuelling bigotry.
In a Maryland Senate committee hearing on March 1, law professor Jamie Raskin was asked by a conservative Republican senator whether the Bible did not enjoin marriages only of men and women.
Replied Raskin: ”People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don’t put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”
According to the Baltimore Sun, the audience applauded, leading committee chairperson Brian Frosh to call for order and say: ”This is not a football game.”
He’s right. To paraphrase Bill Shankly: it’s much more important than that.