Wedding rings and handcuffs
Transmissions
Published 06/03/2010
by Gwendolyn Ann Smith
http://www.ebar.com/columns/column.php?sec=transmissions&article=138 (http://www.ebar.com/columns/column.php?sec=transmissions&article=138)
Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza got engaged last December – their engagement got the pair a 14-year prison sentence for unnatural acts and gross indecency. You see, Chimbalanga and Monjeza live in the African nation of Malawi, and the law there on anything viewed as a homosexual act is clearly illegal. They were taunted and catcalled by others in their township, and many there have made it clear that they will not be welcome home.
Much has been made of this story in the Western press, with Chimbalanga and Monjeza's commitment to marry recast as a marriage, and Chimbalanga's identity stripped away from her by both the media and LGBT rights organizations in an effort to cast this story as a same-sex marriage. Indeed, Chimbalanga's identity as a woman has been erased by much of the media either through a lack of understanding of her identity, or a callous disregard for her identity in favor of political expediency.