Obama calls for a month of celebration of LGBTI people

I am just totally enamoured with Obama right now. After a worrying curve ball at the beginning of his term, when several right wing extremists proposed proposition 8, it is so pleasing to note that Obama has come through on his promises to end discrimination in the USA.

The mere acknowledgement that LGBTI groups and individuals often go unacknowledged is a huge conceptual step for the American leadership, and it is going to force some of the more conservative Americans to take stock of what they believe in. This has been a long time coming and is worthy of admiration and praise from other nations.

Back home however, there is no indication that the same group of people are met with anything but hostility, social exclusion and violence. Corrective rape (where someone rapes you to try and 'turn' you back straight) is on the increase, gay-bashing is still a reality and the social awareness of diversity is limited. Our president made clear his opinion about homosexuality, and the evidence suggests that this is an opinion shared by a large group of people.

I wonder if Obama would be proud to say his roots were in Africa, if he knew that Africa is currently a place of intolerance and violence? I think our own leaders need to recognise that their conservative and regressive perspectives need broadening, and that gender and sexual equality should no longer be a theoretical construct but should be daily practice.

The State of the Nation address was ambitious, but there were glaring abscences that have occurred time and time again. How can the crime of rape, of which South Africa has the highest rate of a country not at war, go unmentioned in the address. This country is seeing both our women and our children abused and violated, stripped of their rights and irrevocably harmed, and for this crime to be unacknowledged is itself a crime. The news this week has had startling headlines such as "10000 child prostitutes in Johannesburg" and "530 child rapes a day". To end these crimes requires leaders of the highest ranks to recognise that something is very wrong here, and that they play a huge role in helping to restore a sense of dignity to vulnerable groups.

These are groups that require us to change our thinking. To open our minds and accept others, and to celebrate them. We are such a diverse country, and I hope that 2009 brings a celebration of this diversity, rather than a hardening of minds and hearts.