I could write a book about that.

It is not really me. It is about where I am, being gay, a homosexual who is Ugandan. A Ugandan who is homosexual. Or is it a human being who is homosexual?

It is that, and more. But it certainly bears little to me being what I am.

Once I told a guy, a friend, that I am gay. He was a recent acquaintance, but a friend. He is a Christian. A 'saved' Christian. Of recent it seems as if everyone is a Christian. And that is the problem.

I told this guy that I am gay. I am sure that he had not met any other guy who would affirm it, or at least that is what I think. He was stunned. He looked at me as if I had grown horns, of a sudden. But he listened to me.

A few weeks later, he asked me whether I had been serious, whether I was really a homosexual. I assented. Could see that though we had not talked about it since the first time, it had been on his mind.

Why is it such a big deal?

Mainly because of the church. From the pulpits in Uganda, being gay has been officially confirmed as the worst of sins. And no wonder that Archbishop Orombi is leading a world wide crusade to bring back the wayward Anglicans to 'biblical' Christianity.

I told my friend that it is not a moral issue. That it is an issue of being. He laughed, incredulous at my naivety, as he saw it. So I asked whether it should matter to him if I was not a Christian. Can I be a homosexual and a Christian? That he could not grasp.

I have lived my life in Uganda. I knew way back that I was gay. And I ducked it, because of my beliefs. Because of what the church believed and taught here. By the time I realized that my being gay was just a small part of me, I was already scarred. Bitter, bitten, beaten, injured and very angry.

I have had to work out a lot of that anger at the church. I have had to come to grips with my spirituality. I understand more, a bit more, those of us who dare to affirm that they are gay, and Christian.

Yet I still ask myself, why does this matter so much? Why is it such a big deal that I am a homosexual?

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