ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the fact that the practice of homosexuality is condemned in Zimbabwe by both the political and the religious leadership. Analysing utterances by some Pentecostal church leaders, one is bound to conclude that the church and the state in Zimbabwe are in an alliance against homosexuality. The debate on homosexuality in Zimbabwe is centred on the constructions of the homosexual as the other. Debates around bodily autonomy and sexual integrity continue to remain tenuous sites of legislation and activism in many African countries, Zimbabwe included. As powerful institutions, the state and the church in Africa continue to police how citizens express their sexuality. While Zimbabwe is a signatory to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the government has found it difficult to publicly recognise the rights of homosexuals. In fact, from 1995 the Zimbabwean state has questioned the concept of human rights which, it says, is devoid of morally acceptable values.
