Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

By curious coincidence, this whole matter arose while I was in India promoting a book that deals in large part with how any condition may go from being perceived as an illness to being lived as an identity. It draws on my experience of such a transition for gay people in the United States. When I first visited India, some twenty years ago, the only obviously gay people were destitute and marginalized. On my second trip, in the late 1990s, I met a subculture of rather soigné gay men, but their faces flushed whenever the thing we had in common was acknowledged. At the Jaipur Literature Festival in February 2013, the “gay panel” in which I participated attracted more than a thousand people, many of whom complained of hideous prejudice in India—but who were emboldened to object publicly to the problem in a tone that anticipated its ultimate resolution. There were many, many straight allies there as well.

The articles that attacked President Mahama for knowing me referenced “the raging national debate on gay and lesbian rights” in Ghana. That there is such a debate—even if it’s a debate about whether to lynch us—is meaningful progress. That local propagandists can plausibly suggest that the president of a West African country is in the hands of gay lobbyists reflects an evolving world. I hope that President Mahama will seize this occasion to take a leadership role in the region on LGBT rights. That so many people from his country wrote to me when the scandal broke indicates that many are thinking through these issues. I hope the time is not far off when to know someone like me will be less of a liability and more of an asset.

The bizarre saga recounted in this article continues. My name appears in nearly every piece about gay rights published in Ghana and is invoked by homophobes from Accra to Zabzugu as an emblem of the evil that stalks their country. Meanwhile, heartbreaking letters continue to flood my inbox. In the summer of 2015, a rumor surfaced in the Ghanaian media suggesting that I had somehow figured in the death of former president John Mills, as part of a nefarious conspiracy to install my man John Mahama, “to pave way for the spread of lesbianism and homosexuality into the country”—this despite President Mahama’s continued unwillingness to show support for gay rights. Mahama has had little contact with me in the years since the original accusations were leveled.

Another recent story in the Ghanaian press described a Legon lawyer’s ecstatic vision that I would soon experience a profound religious conversion. One report held, “A Law Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana, Moses Foh-Amoaning, has prophesized that renowned gay activist, Andrew Solomon, who is an alleged friend of President John Dramani Mahama, will one day become a pastor. ‘Andrew Solomon will be called Pastor Andrew Solomon one day,’ he said. The Law Lecturer told Atinka AM Drive that the gay crusader will soon get closer to God.” Another article on the topic said of Foh-Amoaning, “According to him, the forces behind the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States of America [USA] is unfortunate—he also cited renowned gay advocate, Andrew Solomon, as chief propagator—but ‘God will meet him [Andrew Solomon] at a point and hit him to change.’ ” I haven’t been hit yet, but rather look forward to the encounter when it comes.

In January 2016, another Ghanaian story said, “Citing the president’s association with the acclaimed gay rights activist Andrew Solomon to buttress his point, the Ningo Prampram parliamentary aspirant said President Mahama will do anything for money. ‘If President Mahama can collect gay money to run his campaign, then he will soon mortgage Ghana to anti-Christ to win the 2016 elections,’ he fumed.”

I wonder whether I might collect interest on the mortgage when it is realized.

ROMANIA

Gay, Jewish, Mentally Ill, and a Sponsor of Gypsies in Romania

New Yorker, July 7, 2014

When this article appeared on the New Yorker website, it instantly attracted comments—hundreds of comments, mainly from incensed Romanians. I had gone to their country for the publication of The Noonday Demon there. The publisher was generous, the press was flattering, and my Romanian friends were impeccably hospitable, but I encountered prejudices that troubled me deeply. In the few years since, I’ve received many more letters about this article, and in this protracted aftermath, many Romanians have grown more accepting of its arguments. While this essay has continued to attract attention, most of my Romanian correspondents are writing in response to my books, primarily to seek advice because they suffer from depression or have a disabled child.