U.S.-based Nigerians, many of whom voted for President Barack Obama, are rising in stout defence of the recently-passed bill banning same-sex marriage. They criticised the U.S. President for being partisan on the issue in anticipation of next year’s US presidential elections.
President Obama had, during the week, issued an executive order directing US government agencies to engage in diplomatic fight with foreign nations that make laws criminalising gay conduct, relationship and same sex marriage, an action the Nigerian Senate took only weeks ago.
Specifically, the Nigerian-Americans are concerned that, while President Obama and the US government are opposing the same-sex ban in Nigeria, the majority of states in the US are yet to recognise same sex marriage and the US federal government itself still has a law, the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed under the George W. Bush administration, which stipulates that marriage is between man and woman.
“When you consider the issue of same sex marriage in the US, it is not as if all the states recognise it even though they may not criminalise it as Nigeria has proposed,” according to Kayode Oladele, a Detroit-based Human Rights Attorney observed.
Oladele, who has presented arguments before the US Supreme Court, added that, of the 50 US states, only six recognised same sex marriage.
He disclosed that a review of the US law books revealed that “there are 50 states in the U.S, a strong federal system, out of which only about six, namely, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, plus Washington, D.C. currently grant same sex marriage licences.”
Indeed, even in some states like California, where same sex marriage was recognised in California in the last few years, a later amendment to the state Constitution changed all that, declaring “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognised in California.”
According to Dr. Baba Adam, a US-based university administrator and former US-PRONACO leader “we think President Obama is trying to wow the votes of the Gay community in the upcoming elections.
It would be recalled that Obama had opposed same-sex marriage while campaigning in the last presidential election, but suddenly changed when he said his views on the issue are now “evolving” in a Washington Post report of January 5, earlier this year.
Explaining his position that Obama is merely shifting political gears on the matter, Adam said it is wrong for the US government and President Obama “to coarse other nations to accept same-sex marriage when, within the USA, there is no consensus on the issue.”
Adam, who had actively campaigned for Obama in the last US presidential elections, recalled that, even in President Obama’s US home state of Hawaii, “Gay marriage has long been an issue.”
After gay rights activists sought to use the courts to recognise same-sex marriage in Hawaii and in May 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court gave a split positive decision on the issue for the activists, but the Hawaii Legislature reacted by amending marriage law to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
The former PRONACO leader insisted that the Nigerian “National Assembly has the right to make laws that reflect the values of the Nigerian people, which included ban on same-sex marriage
Besides, a leading US-based Nigerian female professional, Dr. Mercy Obamogie, a practising medical doctor and qualified US lawyer, submited that “banning same-sex marriage had nothing to do with human rights violation,” as the US government and western activists have been trying to argue especially this past week.
According to her “When God created Adam and Eve, He knew exactly what He was doing and He is still in charge.”
“US should not meddle with the internal affairs of Nigeria, especially when it comes to passage of laws that affect her citizens,” she said.
US Republicans, according to Bunmi Oreofe, a US based Nigerian democracy activist, are themselves on the side of the majority of Nigerians on the issue of same-sex marriage.
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