Retrogressive anti-gay law in Uganda has ties to the US

[mota bhai 2,675]

by Lauren Carasik

January 13, 2014

Giles Muhame, managing editor of the Ugandan publication Rolling Stone, with a recent issue in Kampala. The paper published the names and photos of 14 Ugandans it identified as gay. Marc Hofer/AFP/Getty Images

Last month, after an international firestorm opposing its proposed anti-homosexuality law known as the kill-the-gays bill, which would have imposed the death penalty for acts of “aggravated homosexuality,” the Ugandan Parliament approved a less severe version of the law, with the penalty for such conduct set at life in prison. “Aggravated homosexuality” includes sex with minors or disabled individuals, sex when one individual is HIV positive and repeated sex between consenting adults of the same gender.

The revised law, which awaits President Yuweri Museveni’s signature, also criminalizes those who fail to report homosexual conduct and imposes a seven-year prison term for those who perform same-sex marriages.

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Ugandan lawmakers say the legislation is necessary to protect families from Western gays who attempt to recruit their children. That purported threat was aggressively promoted by American evangelicals.

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Several prominent evangelical pastors, including Scott Lively, a minister and self-proclaimed expert on the gay movement from Springfield, spoke out vehemently against the dangers posed by gays. Lively’s how-to book “Redeeming the Rainbow” advises opponents of gay rights to counteract sympathy for gays by highlighting instances of rape and child recruitment. This strategy is now at work in Uganda.

In SMUG v. Lively, the plaintiffs allege that Lively was engaged in a persistent pattern of collaborating with Ugandan officials and leaders to foment repression by helping craft oppressive legislation like the anti-homosexuality bill and for inflaming societal hostility toward LGBTI individuals.

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As the punitive Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill advances toward enactment, local activists fear increasing violence, making the establishment of rights and protections for the LGBTI community increasingly urgent. Holding anti-gay activists like Lively accountable for his deliberate and carefully orchestrated campaign to institutionalize hatred and persecution in Uganda would be a small but important step in the right direction.

Lauren Carasik is Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Western New England University School of Law.

Al-Jazeera America

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Ugandan lawmakers say the legislation is necessary to protect families from Western gays who attempt to recruit their children. That purported threat was aggressively promoted by American evangelicals.

I've read that very sentiment here in various posts from certain members. So, if folks are interested to see what the American Taliban considers desirable, book a trip to Uganda and have a look.