' I Was Horrified By Nigeria’s Anti-Gay Law' - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,

Award winning Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, yesterday on WNYC Radio’s Brian Lehrer Show, said she was horrified by Nigeria’s anti-gay law which was signed by President Goodluck Jonathan early this year. You recall Chimamanda had written a piece, titled, “Why Can’t He Just Be Like Everyone Else?” about the anti gay law and her piece received numerous responses from Nigerians, many of which were negative.



In the piece, Chimamanda had said:

 A crime is a crime for a reason. A crime has victims. A crime harms society. On what basis is homosexuality a crime? Adults do no harm to society in how they love and whom they love. This is a law that will not prevent crime, but will, instead, lead to crimes of violence:
Many Nigerians support the law because they believe the Bible condemns homosexuality. The
Bible can be a basis for how we choose to live our personal lives, but it cannot be a basis for the laws we pass, not only because the holy books of different religions do not have equal significance for all Nigerians but also because the holy books are read differently by different people. The Bible, for example, also condemns fornication and adultery and divorce, but they are not crimes.

Speaking to Brian Lehrer, Ms. Adichie said that she wrote that article to start a conversation with Nigerians of her generation. And that despite the negative reaction of some Nigerians to her piece she would write the same piece again if she had to.

 “I think part of it is religion. Religion has so clouded the discourse on topics of this sort that very often it is no longer about humanity. It just becomes about the Bible said this is wrong, therefore we should stone them kind of thing.”

Chimamanda however, noted that the piece changed some minds.

 “For every 10 people that said you are possessed by the demons and that sort of things, one person has said that I am rethinking this and I am starting to see that it makes no sense at all to criminalize people for being who they are.”