DR Neal Hovelmeier, former deputy headmaster at St. John’s College recently torched a storm after announcing to his students he is gay.
The backlash he received from parents and guardians, with children at the school, and from the nation at large eventually led to his resignation.
He had been at the school for the past 15 years and after his infamous announcement, there have been more questions than answers.
As a role model, why did he disclose his sexual orientation to innocent students and to achieve what?
Was it part of the curriculum he was hired to deliver to students?
Why did the school head and the board spring up to Dr Hovelmeier’s defence despite knowing fully that homosexuality is not recognised in our country’s Constitution?
Could there be more to this story than meets the eye?
Did the ‘gay doctor’, in cahoots with other regime change elements, plan this whole episode?
Surely after 15 years at St. John’s College, what really pushed him into going public, well aware of the general condemnation of homosexuality in Zimbabwe?
This could not have been a mere publicity stunt by Dr Hovelmeier.
The timing of the disclosure itself raises eyebrows.
Bear in mind Dr Hovelmeire revealed he was gay when President Emmerson Mnangagwa was in New York, US, attending the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Is the so-called gay community in Zimbabwe trying to ‘sanitise’ themselves in the eyes of the new dispensation?
We said in our lead story that Dr Hovelmeier’s testimony was calculated to cause such outrage and set in motion national and international debates to pressure the Second Republic to revise its stance on such pernicious tendencies as gayism in Zimbabwe.
We say so because after Dr Hovelmeier’s resignation, an ‘unfortunate’ grouping, Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), came out guns blazing, calling on the Government to set up support structures and policies to protect its members from what they called ‘blackmail’, ‘segregation’ and ‘abuse’.
This is the same NGO that accuses the Government of not observing their so-called ‘human rights’ in the country in a bid to force their inhuman deeds on us, while drawing sympathy from some Western nations supporting their practice.
The same GALZ will not accept that even the most advanced and so-called democratic societies do not embrace homosexuality, yet the impression given to Africans alongside aid packages is that we have no option but to accept it.
Remember Malawi during the the era of Bingu waMutharika in 2010?
Sixty percent of Malawi’s budget then was being funded by Britain.
Malawi then outlawed homosexuality and sentenced a gay couple (Steven Mojenza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga) to 14 years behind bars, riling the West, and Britain in particular.
Britain immediately cut foreign aid to Malawi, throwing the country’s economy under the bus and Malawi, in a bid to restore relations with the West, later reversed their stance on homosexuality after President Bingu waMutharika pardoned the gay couple.
But then, Zimbabwe is different!
And, as said elsewhere in this paper, our culture as Africans and as Zimbabweans, considers homosexuality an outright abomination, a taboo and an extreme violation of our sense of decency.
However, gays, adamant as they are, have long-known that homosexuality has no place in our society and culture.
This is why they use events such as the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA), among other dubious ‘festivals’, to try and express themselves.
We are also aware of the ‘secret’ gay bars in the country.
They are ‘secret’ because they (gays) know that their practice is taboo in Zimbabwe.
No doubt homosexuality is one of the many ways our former colonisers and erstwhile enemies used, and still use, to destroy and defile our culture and identity.
Cecil John Rhodes and his ‘gay partner’ Leander Starr Jameson, lying side-by-side at Matobo hills must be smiling in their graves because they managed to defile our sacred shrine, Njelele.
No wonder we now have the likes of Dr Hovelmeier trying to defile us.
God forbid!
Zimbabweans must take heed!