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

Nigeria’s award winning writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said yesterday that she was horrified by Nigeria’s anti-gay law signed by President Goodluck Jonathan early this year. She made the comment while answering listeners’ questions on WNYC Radio’s Brian Lehrer Show. She defended the article she wrote in which she called the law unconstitutional and unjust.

 

Chimamanda had written in a piece:

 “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.”