Less than a year after a new penal code made same-sex sexual acts punishable in Gabon, the Gabonese Senate on Monday surprisingly voted to repeal the law.

Even by a large majority, the Gabonese upper house of the senate voted for the lifting of the ban. In a closed session on Monday, 59 senators voted in favour, 17 against and four abstained. As Reuters reports, the abolition of the law had previously been decided by the House of Commons.

The reasons for this sudden change of mind are unclear, and the government has not explained why it has decided to revise the law.

In order for the amendment to come into force and for the disgraceful paragraph to be finally removed from the codes, the law still has to be ratified by President Ali Bongo. Bongo has not yet made a public statement on this issue, his wife Sylvia had spoken out in favour of the amendment. She said that the possibility to love freely without being condemned is a fundamental human right.

Debate between conservatives and liberals

Within Gabonese society, the vote sparked off a heated debate. Some politicians and religious authorities would have liked to maintain the status quo in order “not to endanger religious and traditional values”. The Catholic archdiocese of Libreville, for example, had expressed its disapproval before Monday’s vote, and had issued a statement calling on the senators to vote no:

“In the name of the wisdom of our ancestors contained in our different cultures, celebrating life, love and the family, we say no to the decriminalisation of homosexuality.”

Libreville Archdiocese

Gregue Nguele, a lawyer and specialist in citizenship and human rights issues, told Gabon Media Time that by decriminalising the government had only fulfilled its international obligations.

In a noteworthy essay, Nguele wrote that it is strange that “religious authorities only step into the breach when it comes to questions of sexual intimacy of persons. For a long time they were questioned on the future of the nation, threatening our coexistence and representing great concerns of the Gabonese people. They were silent and stuttered some barely audible phrases, arguing that they did not want to get involved in politics because ‘all power comes from God'”. Another argument developed by the defenders of the criminalisation of homosexual acts is the respect of Bantu customs.

“Suddenly they pretend to defend habits and customs they do not know or practice. But what Bantu customs are we talking about? About a profoundly corrupt society that loses its value, fails and decays without guidance. A society in which only a certain financial and material comfort is sought.

The empirical study of Gabonese society shows us that the depravity of customs is at the heart of the collapse of our social fabric, without homosexuality being the central cause:

many cases of incest,
sexual abuse of minors and child pornography,
early sexuality and early pregnancy,
social promotion on the basis of belonging to esoteric circles or against sexual favours
young girls who are supported in college by adult lovers,
etc.”

These “social phenomena”, which actually destroyed the social and family fabric, would be ignored and denied. Everyone is privately moved by them, but does not see it as their responsibility to bring them up and denounce them. Therefore it should not be done with homosexuality:

“Our notorious Bantu customs … must under no circumstances be used to stigmatise our fellow human beings because of their sexual orientation. … While decriminalisation recognises the right to a community (homosexual) without taking anything away from another community (heterosexual), the current debate has led to a multitude of arguments that are deliberately exaggerated”.

Gregue Nguele, Gabon Media Time

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