By Staff Reporter
The only time Socialist Party (SP) and UPND become bedmates is on homosexuality, says Economic Front (EF) leader Wynter Kabimba.
Commenting on the homosexual movement who for the first time in Zambia’s history led a march past in Lusaka over the weekend, Kabimba said the gay movement is flourishing because of the enabling environment created by President Hakainde Hichilema’s UPND administration, adding also that SP leader Dr Fred M’membe is not someone who shied away from immediately staking his position on some major debates happening in the country, but he has been quiet since the matter happened.
“They will condemn everything else about UPND. The only time that the Socialist Party and UPND are in the same bed is when it comes to homosexuality,” Kabimba said.
He said it was up to Zambians to reconcile with their own consciences, if on one hand they think they can be Christians while on the other hand thinking that the UPND and SP should be given state power.
“The Socialist Party and UPND have made their positions very clear on where they stand on this issue of homosexuality. They are sympathetic to the movement. They are advocates of this so-called sexual orientation,” Kabimba said. “So if the Zambian people decide to vote for them they should not turn around when they go to parliament and introduce legislation or a constitutional amendment which recognises LGBTQ rights.”
Kabimba said it always puzzles him that people proclaim themselves to be Christian and holding traditional values while on the other hand joining parties whose ideologies on sexual orientation are anti-Christ, saying “you can’t have it both ways.”
Information minister Chushi Kasanda said homosexuals who protested caught the government and public unaware as the permit they obtained was for women and girls issues, and insisted that the UPND administration does not support same sex relations, and police have since effected arrests on the ringleaders.
But Kabimba said the fact that homosexuals chose now rather than at any other time in the history of the country to publicly protest, showed that they sensed that the UPND has created a condusive atmosphere in which their queer ways should flourish.
He argued that the act was not an accident as they were feeding into an ambivalent position taken by President Hichilema, against leaders like Kenyan President Ruto who clearly said he would not allow homosexuality in his country and those who wanted to tie their aid to homosexual promotion should keep their money.
Kabimba said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the same during his recent trip to South Africa.
“The problem you have is even the Christian Community in Zambia is divided over this issue. There are some clergymen eating with this regime and not able to come out very forcefully and condemn. There is no way individual Christians can fight the homosexual movement on their own, they need a form of leadership that encompasses all the voices,” Kabimba said. “I am looking forward to a day when the Church will speak over this as one.”
And on Dr M’membe’s silence, Kabimba said his silence could be found in the High Court judgment where he sued Kabimba, Daily Nation and Millenium Radio that the SP would admit homosexuals to the membership of that organisation.
He said what brought the differences between himself and those in the SP was that they wanted to bring in through the back door money from sources he suspected to be LGBTQ.
