Broken Promised Land

Like human rights more generally, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people subsist on rocky ground in much of Africa. In Namibia’s Rainbow Project: Gay Rights in an African Nation, anthropologist Robert Lorway examines the issue of gay rights in one African country, Namibia.

Perhaps the first thing to say about LGBT rights in Africa is that the challenges Lorway describes in Namibia are, sadly, far from unique. In the Central African Republic, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a small handful of other countries, same-sex sexual activity is legal, although it would perhaps be more accurate to say that it is not illegal and exists in a shadow world that is subject to frequent violence and constant danger. South Africa is the only country on the continent that recognizes same-sex relationships and marriage, and it is the only one that has enacted LGBT anti-­discrimination legislation. True, in some African countries, such as...