There's a darkness on the edge...

I support gay rights. The state should not withhold a person’s rights just because the state does not like who that person is sleeping with. Gay people should be free to do every single legal thing a straight person can do. Including forming a legally-recognised matrimonial union. If I was pushed into a fight between those who want to legalise homosexuality and those who want homosexuality punished by law, I would take the side of the gays. I would have to be pushed into it, though. Cos I believe in freedom, I believe in justice and I believe in common decency. But I still have a problem with homosexuality.

It’s not what you think. Stay with me.

The following:There is this scene in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where Jay and Bob need a disguise to sneak past some policemen with their orangutan. Jay hatches the clever plan of pretending that he and Silent Bob are gay life partners and that the ape is their adopted child. They threaten the police, saying: “We're gay! And this is our adopted love child! We're not from around here! Don't make us go back to our liberal city home with a tales of prejudice and bigotry in the heart of Utah!”Will Ferrel, the cop, answers: “Sir— or ma'am. Please accept my apologies for detaining you and your unorthodox but constitutionally-protected family unit.”
Then he turns to the other cops and says, “I just avoided a political fiasco by letting this butt-fucking Brady Bunch go.”

I found that screamingly funny.

I also wrote The Buggery Song.

I hate Puff Daddy’s music and public persona. So I call him a faggot. The use of the word gay to denote the opposite of cool generally amuses me.

So the first problem is that the most common treatment I give the subject of homosexuality is laughter. It amuses me. I am sure homosexual people are not pleased by the fact that their lifestyle is a source of humour for people like me, but I am not guilty about that. They don’t need my admiration, and besides, there are aspects about my lifestyle that others find funny. I have no fashion sense, I live in Kireka, I wear glasses etc. No one has a right not to be laughed at.
I always thought that, though I would laugh at the episode where Cartman is trying to train his dog to be straight, if I was told that my bank manager was a homosexual I would look at the person telling me this and say, “His orientation is no business of mine. As long as he is literate.”

I always thought this attitude was essentially harmless. But then something else happened.

There is this guy in Kampala town: he is a fashion designer. He wears women’s blouses and paints his nails. He has a flamboyant hairstyle and strong perfume. He is a big dude. Hefty. Broad shoulders.

Most famous flamer in town.

Like I said, he is a fashion designer. He had a fashion-related deal with one of the photographers at the newspaper where I work and came to the office about that. I wasn’t in at the time, so my seat, which is close to the photographer’s, was empty.

The photographer gave him my seat. When I walked into work, I found him on my seat.

I got a less comfy chair and sat on that. This photographer—let’s not give him too much credit— does not know that you are supposed to say “excuse me” and find a way to replace the chair you have stolen. Prick. Anyway…

After the fashion designer had gone, and my chair was free, I honestly should have retrieved it and sat on it but I didn’t. I exchanged it with the chair at the desk of another colleague who wasn’t there. It wasn’t the warm chair thing. I don’t like to sit on chairs other people have made warm, but I know it wasn’t just that. I just did not want to sit on the chair that guy had been on.

If you understand my feeling then what kind of bastards are we? I mean, what sort of person does this to another person? Refuses to sit on a chair just because that other guy was on it? Supporters of apartheid and Jim Crow laws: That sort of person. This is not just you-are-a-human-being-like-me-but-some-things-you-do-are-funny. This is manifest bigotry. And it is in me. Like an instinct. Like reflex. My name is Baz and I am a homophobe. Have I betrayed my ideals?
What the hell kind of person am I?