Other Sheep - Multicultural Ministries with Sexual Minorities

Book Reviews

Stephen O Murray and Will Roscoe - Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African
Homosexualities (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998, 358 pp.).

Review by Tom Hanks.

This pioneering study, the first book-length treatment of the subject, includes a bibliography of more
than 25 pp., making available to the general reader a wealth of insight from this century’s
investigations, often censured and never widely circulated. Led by Nelson Mandela, and supported
by Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa’s historic first inclusion of nondiscrimination on
grounds of sexual orientation in its post-apartheid constitution, reminds us how intimately bound
together are the battles against racism and sexism with the worldwide struggle for lesbigay and
transsexual liberation—undoubtedly a major factor in the decision of the ILGA (International Lesbian
and Gay Association) to schedule its next international conference in Johannesburg (Sept. 20-25,
with pre-conferences for women and the Working Party on Homophobia and Religion, Sept. 19).

The stark contrast between South Africa’s staggering achievements and pioneering role in human
rights (pp. 243-247) with the homophobic ravings of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe (pp. 247-
252) suggest that this volume (and any succeeding study) might more wisely be titled “Studies of
African Homophobias.” The erudite editors (and most contributors) obviously are deeply concerned
with political efficacy and make no pretense of any outmoded positivistic scientific neutrality or
objectivity. However, the cause of liberating justice for the oppressed is not advanced by
pseudoscientific investigations of the length of Jewish noses nor of African American scores on white
I.Q. tests. Rather, pro-actively, we must study racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia—and pose the
questions to be investigated from that perspective, not the traditional ones of majority ideologies and
propaganda. Given the almost total despair of virtually all activists in the face of cruel homophobia
dominant in the Islamic world, and the recent disastrous Anglican Lambeth conference, the fact that
Anglican Bishop Tutu’s firm support for sexual minority rights has been accompanied in South Africa
by a growing Islamic brand of liberation theology, certainly is worth heralding also.

Although mainly of interest to social scientists and activists for lesbigay liberation, Murray and
Roscoe’s volume also contains several insights of special interest to students of the Hebrew Bible
and Christian Testament. I found especially significant the comment of an Ethiopian transvestite
homosexual who explained: “The Divinity created me 'wobo', crooked. If I had been a man, I could
have taken a wife and begotten children. If I had been a woman, I could have married and borne
children. But I am 'wobo': I can do neither.” For centuries Hebrew Bible scholars have sought to
elucidate the two laments that introduce the two main sections of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes):

“What is crooked cannot be made straight” (Eccl. 1:15);

“Consider the work of God; who can make straight what he has made crooked?” (7:13).

Elsewhere I have summarized the considerable evidence that elderly bachelor Qoheleth (“Teacher”)
was homosexual--and in his context not really too gay about it. So I was glad to get a bit of evidence
for my queer reading of Ecclesiastes. If our “ex-gay” friends think they have a proof text from Paul
(“And such were some of you,” 1 Corinthians 6:11; cf. v. 9), they might contemplate the wise
testimony of Qoheleth. Although contemporary Ethiopia is geographically distant and historically far
removed from ancient Biblical cultures, we should not be surprised if certain subversive figures of
speech, passing unnoticed in majority ideologies and propaganda, are common to sexual minorities
in different times and places.

Similarly, in the New Testament, we have the text properly translated in the old Queen James
Version: “there shall be two men in one bed….Two women shall be grinding together” (Luke 17:34-
35), which modern homophobic translations commonly change to “two [people] in one bed” (NRSV;
NJB [NIV]) and hasten to “clarify” that the two women are “grinding grain/meal,” not just grinding in
general without object specified. As many have pointed out, anyone who can consult the Greek
original can easily detect the homophobic character of modern translations (NRSV; NJB; NIV) that
correctly leave the two women specified in v. 35 but censure the reference to two men in one bed in
v. 34. True, as the King James version faithfully signaled (with italics), the words “men” and “women”
do not actually occur in the Greek, but the grammatical construction and reference is masculine in v.
34 and feminine in v. 35, justifying the addition of “men” and “women” to the English translation. A
few seek to defend modern homophobic translations with the argument that in ancient Greek as in
modern English, the masculine often is inclusive of both genders. However, this overlooks Luke’s
common device of pairing women with men in his illustrations (see the man with the lost sheep paired
with the woman with a lost coin in Luke 15:4-7, 8-10).

The NIV recovers its grammatical courage when it translates the parallel passage in Matthew as “two
men,” but in Matthew’s version the two men are on more respectable terrain “in a field” (not in bed
together). Admirers of Abraham Lincoln, whom Larry Kramer is holding hostage with evidence that
Lincoln shared more than just a bed with a male friend for four years, may take comfort from the fact
that there are Biblical precedents, at least for those who read the King James version.

Now from Africa comes evidence that raises further disturbing questions about those two women in
Luke 17:35: “The word in Swahili glossed as ‘lesbian’ is msagaji (plural wasagaji)—‘a grinder’” (p. 34-
35, 230, 302 note 15). The upper and lower millstones used in grinding grain provide further
parallels to tops and bottoms in female homoeroticism. Apparently Qoheleth understood none of
this, since for him women “grinders” are but metaphors for the teeth one loses in old age (Eccl. 12:3).

In the “dark continent,” of course, not everything is so different from what we have observed in
“civilization.” Kamau, a young gay man born in rural Kenya writes of a gay friend: “Leaving his wife
was out of the question. It’s just that he felt tied in this marriage because he still has to act straight.
He was a born-again Christian. The funny thing about these gay people in Africa is they are all so
religious. He was a born-again Christian and choirmaster in his church and that is considered to be
very, very important in Kenya: if you’re a choirmaster, then you’re a respectable person in the
community” (p. 49 [italics mine]). However, the general African pattern of homoeroticism parallels
more closely the Biblical and Latin American cultures than modern North Atlantic ones (p. 98). Also,
throughout the book we encounter evidence that homophobia parallels xenophobia. When
homoerotic practice becomes public knowledge, commonly it is blamed (like an outbreak of measles)
on foreigners: either males from another tribe or from Europe or America. Majority ideologies and
propaganda link homophobia with xenophobia throughout history and the world.

Although religious factors obviously are significant, both for troubled Africans seeking solace for
their “crookedness” and as a common source of homophobic discourse (Robert Mugabe was
“mission-educated,” p. 223), MCC churches in Nigeria only make it into a footnote: “Patron (1995:24)
reported the establishment of a Metropolitan Community Church in the Nigerian state of Imo in the
late 1970’s (“hiding nothing of MCC’s mission to welcome all peoples - including homosexuals”) and
the subsequent founding of more than twenty MCC churches in Nigeria. Whether there are identified
'homosexuals' for these Nigerian churches to accept is not clear” (p. 306, note 11).

The carelessness in research indicated in this note reminded me of my first encounter with ILGA
members in Mexico in 1991. I asked activists from all over the world what was their major problem,
and without exception they indicated (in various terms) traditional “religion.” However, to my follow-up
question, “And what are you doing about that problem” they responded with virtual unanimity
“Nothing—I’m not religious.” Although it would be presumptuous to demand that all ILGA activists
become “religious,” I don’t think it is expecting too much to encourage them to become responsible.
Were someone to inquire about the major problem amongst gay males in Argentina in the last
decade, and I were to respond “AIDS,” everyone would be shocked if I followed up with the comment
“But I don’t do anything about it because I’m HIV negative.” Whatever our personal situation or
ideology, we have a responsibility to educate and teach the truth, since it is the truth that sets us
free, not any particular ideology. If a homophobe claims Abraham Lincoln as an ideological and
political ally, even if we are lifelong Democrats who never have a kind word to say about
contemporary Republicans, we need to set the record crooked and point out that today’s “Log Cabin
Republicans” (however naïve and politically) apparently chose their name well—even prophetically
(see Larry Kramer). Similarly, activists who—even after a decade of burgeoning sexual minority
spirituality—would say “I am not religious,” can be asked to at least become a bit informed. And that
implies (minimally) that we stop strengthening the hands of our political adversaries (1) by
continually delivering the entire Catholic Church into the hands of the Pope; and (2) we must insist
that not a single verse in the Bible (in the original languages) has a word to say about
“homosexuality” and set the record crooked about the rich diversity of Biblical teaching in the area of
human sexuality.