Zimbabwean leaders denounce gays

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai lashed out at gay people on March 25 during a belated International Women’s Day event.

Mugabe said: “Three days ago, I heard that some people want us to discuss the issue of gays in the new constitution. How do we even begin to talk about it? Those who engage in homosexual behavior are just crazy. It’s just madness. Insanity. We can’t do it or the dead will turn in their graves. … If you are doing that (gay sex), you are destroying nationhood. (It’s) an alien practice that is being exported into our country.”

“In Britain and the United States, I saw an archbishop blessing a gay wedding,” the president added. “I want to see how they will procreate. If they manage, then I will admit that I don’t know.”

Tsvangirai said: “The president has spoken on the issue of gay rights, men who breathe to other men’s ears. Never. I don’t accept that culture. Why do you look for other men when women make up 52 percent of the population? Men are few.”

A spokesman for the group Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe called the developments “very worrying.”

Zimbabwe will begin drafting a new constitution on April 10.

By Rex Wockner