Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill to Pass?

November 15th, 2012 by Ed Brayton

The Ugandan legislature may be on the verge of passing the “kill the gays” bill that has caused so much controversy over the last couple years. It’s appeared to be dead, or at least tabled, a few times but now one of the leaders of the parliament there is predicting it will pass soon:

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told The Associated Press that the bill, which originally mandated death for some gay acts, will become law this year.

Ugandans “are demanding it,” she said, reiterating a promise she made before a meeting on Friday of anti-gay activists who spoke of “the serious threat” posed by homosexuals to Uganda’s children. Some Christian clerics at the meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, asked the speaker to pass the law as “a Christmas gift.”

“Speaker, we cannot sit back while such (a) destructive phenomenon is taking place in our nation,” the activists said in a petition. “We therefore, as responsible citizens, feel duty-bound to bring this matter to your attention as the leader of Parliament … so that lawmakers can do something to quickly address the deteriorating situation in our nation.”

The anti-gay activists paraded in front of Kadaga, with parents and schoolchildren holding up signs saying homosexuality is “an abomination.” The speaker then promised to consider the bill within two weeks, declaring that “the power is in our hands.”

The law would extend the country’s already-harsh anti-gay laws, which prescribe prison terms for those found to be homosexual, by adding a crime of “aggravated homosexuality” for repeat offenders that would put them to death.

Posted in Equality, Religious Barbarism | 13 comments

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13 comments on this post.

  1. beezlebubby:

    November 15th, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    The hacker collective Anonymous has issued a warning. If this bill passes, it’s going to be MIGHTY interesting to see what happens to Uganda’s cyber-infrastructure. They might be hacked back to 1970.

  2. jnorris:

    November 15th, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    The good news is those conservatives who can’t stand living in a country ruled by a black man and who want to live in a theocracy, but not in Iran, can now live in Uganda.

  3. Michael Heath:

    November 15th, 2012 at 1:40 pm

    The anti-gay activists paraded in front of Kadaga, with parents and schoolchildren holding up signs saying homosexuality is “an abomination.”

    I wonder where they learned that from . . .

  4. davidhart:

    November 15th, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    Jnorris@2: I suspect that anyone who couldn’t handle Barack Obama’s melanin quotient will find Yoweri Musuveni even harder to accept as a leader.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Uganda

  5. thomwatson:

    November 15th, 2012 at 2:40 pm

    Michael Heath @3 asks: “I wonder where they learned that from . . .”

    From Time, Dec. 2009, “Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill: Inspired by the U.S.”
    http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1946645,00.html

    The bill has an American genesis of sorts, inspired to a large extent by the visits of U.S. evangelicals who are involved with a movement that promotes Christianity’s role in getting homosexuals to become “ex-gays” through prayer and faith. Ugandan supporters of the bill appear to be particularly impressed by the ideas of Scott Lively, a California conservative preacher who has written a book, The Pink Swastika, about what he calls the links between Nazism and a gay agenda for world domination, which, by itself, would have raised the anti-colonial sensitivities of Ugandan society. Says the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, an Episcopalian priest from Zambia who authored a recent report on anti-gay politics in Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya: “The U.S. culture wars have been exported to Africa.”

    That same Scott Lively, by the way, who claims that Hitler and most Nazis were gay and that, therefore, gay men were responsible for the Holocaust, is now exploring a possible run for governor of Massachusetts. #snowballschanceinhell

  6. thomwatson:

    November 15th, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    Lively, in fact, was in Uganda and met in person with lawmakers just one month before the bill first was filed.

  7. Ichthyic:

    November 15th, 2012 at 5:50 pm

    I wonder where they learned that from . . .

    yes. exactly.

    priests and pastors abuse children in ways more than physical.

  8. Michael Heath:

    November 15th, 2012 at 7:57 pm

    Ed’s cite reports:

    The anti-gay activists paraded in front of Kadaga, with parents and schoolchildren holding up signs saying homosexuality is “an abomination.”

    I responded earlier:

    I wonder where they learned that from . . .

    thomwatson responds to my reply:

    From Time, Dec. 2009, “Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill: Inspired by the U.S.”

    Thanks for the cite. I was actually asking a rhetorical question where I probably should have emphasized the word ‘abomination’, which is a word frequently used by the Abrahamic god protoganist in English translations of the Old Testament.

    Regular readers of Ed’s blog are up to speed on the successful influence U.S. evangelicals have had promoting hatred of gays in Uganda. My point goes more to the core of the matter, that this hatred is well represented in Christian holy dogma, as illustrated by a Ugandan using the term, abomination, to justify their evil desire to kill gay people.

    Of course merely pointing to sacred dogma as a defense of bigotry and hatred is not a compelling defense for objectively moral people, something I’ve yet to encounter any biblically inerrantist Christian consider, I do observe them avoiding this issue.

  9. Quantum Mechanic:

    November 15th, 2012 at 8:11 pm

    Ugandans “are demanding it,” she said, reiterating a promise she made before a meeting on Friday of anti-gay activists who spoke of “the serious threat” posed by homosexuals to Uganda’s children.

    Soooo… When they goin’ to get around to them thar’ Cath’lic Church?

  10. iangould:

    November 16th, 2012 at 5:36 am

    Someone tell me again abotu the unique evil of Islam.

  11. MikeMa:

    November 16th, 2012 at 7:09 am

    Scott Lively’s god is one mean, twisted bastard. So is Scott.

    Many pro-vaccine websites and blogs used to sport a nifty Jenny McCarthy body count widget related to her activity supporting anti-vaccine causes. I think that if this bill passes, Scott should have his own body count widget. He deserves it.

  12. matty1:

    November 16th, 2012 at 1:31 pm

    The hacker collective Anonymous has issued a warning. If this bill passes, it’s going to be MIGHTY interesting to see what happens to Uganda’s cyber-infrastructure.

    That’s terrible, I have been given $35 million dollars in a Ugandan bank account and can only access it by emailing my details to this totally trustworthy official. If he looses internet access what will I do?

  13. jnorris:

    November 16th, 2012 at 2:10 pm

    davidhart, you are assuming they are rational enough to check that out first.

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