Removing Death Sentence From Anti-Homosexuality Bill Is Inadequate, Says TWO
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out called on Uganda’ government today to decriminalize homosexuality and eliminate the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill. It was reported this afternoon that Uganda’ President Yoweri Museveni would soften the bill by getting rid of the death penalty. However, this hardly makes this draconian bill acceptable and would still make life unbearable for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Ugandans,” said TWO.
“This is still an intolerable, oppressive bill that is designed to terrorize and dehumanize sexual minorities in Uganda,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “While physical death is reportedly removed as a punishment, the bill still ensures a slow, emotional and spiritual death for thousands of gay Ugandans.”
The Associated Press reports that President Yoweri Museveni (pictured left) has told colleagues he believes the bill is too harsh and has encouraged his ruling National Resistance Movement Party to overturn the death sentence provision of the draft law.
In the proposed bill, anyone convicted of a homosexual act — which includes touching someone of the same sex with the intent of committing a homosexual act –would face life imprisonment.
James Nsaba Buturo, Uganda’ ironically titled minister of state for ethics and integrity, has floated replacing the death penalty with compulsory “ex-gay” counseling, presumably from prison. This comes only months after American ex-gay ministers gave seminars on curing homosexuality in Kampala.
“The death penalty is likely to be removed,” said Buturo. “The president doesn’t believe in killing gays. I also don’t believe in it. I think gays can be counseled and they stop the bad habit.”
“Although the president is against some parts of the bill, the bill has to stay,” said ruling party spokeswoman Mary Karoro Okurut.”(Homosexuality) is not allowed in African culture. We have to protect the children in schools who are being recruited into homosexual activities.”
“The idea that homosexuality can be prohibited in Africa is as absurd and unrealistic as banning oxygen,” said TWO’ Besen. “Gay people are not a threat to children. We do not recruit them. It is clear that the Ugandan government is awash in ignorance and trying to legislate based on false stereotypes and misinformation. Unfortunately, American evangelicals and ex-gay organizations are responsible for spreading these lies and propaganda in Africa.”
“…I think gays can be counseled and they stop the bad habit”
Uh-oh, I see a “PATCH” coming! Sure, here, just slap it on your arm and viola! GayBeGone! Seriously, it appears that the evangelicals and ex-gays in america who are responsible for converting this president to their brand of hardline “bible-based” ideology may succeed. And if LGBT people are the only ones they ever persecute in the name of the lord, there is also a good chance that the furor will eventually subside… because what little visibility they have there will vanish – out of sight, out of mind.
Of course there is also a good chance that they will end up putting so many people in prison for bumping into each other and touching, that they will bankrupt their already bankrupt society.
Well, Peter, the fact of the matter is that gays really aren’t the only ones being oppressed in that part of Africa.
A good goal would be to make enough noise that this bill goes away, and then NOT forget about the other problems that are going on in that area, like the child slave trade and the oppression of women.
[...] Truth Wins Out calls on Uganda to decriminalize homosexuality and come into the 21st Century. Read more [...]
It’s no wonder that most of Africa is an economic and political cesspool. They need to dig their heads out of the sand and enter the 21st century.
The days of lynching gays is OVER.
If you really want to follow Biblical teachings why not impose death penalty for wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
That should just about wipe out everyone in Uganda.
The level of superstitious ignorance in Africa is mind blowing. I heard some jerk with an african accent on the radio saying that homosexuality was lahned (learned) behavior and it could be unlahned.
While on a cruise, we were talking to a Dr from South Africa who said that when the indigenous africans come to the clinic, they have to draw 2 blood samples. The first one they drop into hydrogen peroxide to make it bubble and foam to prove that the ‘evil spirits’ have been destroyed and then drop the other one into water to prove that they are now gone. Then they will let the Drs treat them with western medicine. Unless they destroy the ‘evil spirits’ first, they wont accept the western treatment. This is they type of barbarous ignorance that gays are up against there.
The dear doctor’s testimony sounds rather outlandish and improbable even to a South African like moi. Je ne sais pas – I do not encounter the “indigenous kind” that much living in the largest city but being logical now – the country’s healthcare professionals do not have the time or patience to entertain such experiments. I have never heard of such behaviour and most locals will crack themselves up if they ever hear something like that. South Africans like joking with Colonial stereotypes to prove a point: they are stereotypes. The aetiology and purpose of such is mostly self-amusement.
“These questions about South Africa were posted on a South African Tourism Website and were answered by the website owner (great sense of humour!):
Q: Does it ever get windy in South Africa ? I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? ( UK )
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.
Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in South Africa ? Can you send me a list of them in JHB, Cape Town , Knysna and Jeffrey’ Bay? ( UK )
A: What did your last slave die of?
Q: Can you tell me the regions in South Africa where the female population is smaller than the male population? ( Italy )
A: Yes, gay nightclubs.
Q: Are there supermarkets in Cape Town and is milk available all year round?
A: No, we are a peaceful civilisation of vegan hunter-gatherers. Milk is illegal.”
Cobus, since South Africa is so close to the Outback and the southern Arctic Ocean, it’s natural that Americans assume your poor country has no green plants. It is a sad situation, and I pray for you.
I recall an article in National Geographic in 1972 which depicted Africans eating insects off the ground. And in 1980 in secondary school, I saw pictures in our well-preserved textbooks of Africans wearing headbaskets, and Western VIPs riding in 1955 Thunderbirds. Africa was a black-and-white country back then. Do you have color now?
Seriously though, all this ignorance in the north makes it much too easy for U.S. war-hawks to call for bombing Africa, since many people still think of empty desert and uncivilized tribes when someone mentions Africa, the Middle East, and the subcontinent. Mention Latin America, and some people think of uninhabited jungle — a new frontier.
I’m not trying to suggest that we are all consciously that ignorant. But people (especially my generation) were taught very old and incomplete information about Africa in school, and we learn very little about Africa after graduation. We may update our knowledge with time, but I think the childhood impressions lurk in the back of our minds.
My generation wasn’t taught jack about Africa.
Pyramids! King Tut! Poor people! That’s where blacks come from!
That’s about it.
I even remember taking a World History course in high school (one of the dumbest possible concepts of a high school class really: We are going to teach you everything you need to know about the history of the ENTIRE WORLD in 180 days!), and still, not much about Africa.
And then, even the Advanced Placement history classes I took in high school were American and European, so it was basically “The history of the white people that we’re aware of!”
Anyway.
I realise there is an isolationist bias in Europe and America, more specifically in the education systems.
That is why material like the quote from the website as above tends to have us laughing until we cry. When I read the piece the first time I laughed so much I couldn’t read.
Having grown up in SA of French Huguenot ancestry who have landed here in 1688 we are very much African yet to some not African enough.
In my humble opinion a lot of xenophobia and racism will be relinquished from the collective consciousness if children are learnt proper information about all parts of the world. In my country we basically covered the entire world in geography and history.
As a stereotyped nation we always read and keep up to date on events and cultures in other countries – well at least the intelligentsia.
Of all of my university friends I am the only one still living in SA, some in Italy, some are in Taiwan and England – so we learn a lot from interacting with the diaspora as well. We are inextricably linked to them.
I grew up far from Evan, in upstate New York. We, too had a single one-year high-school course about world history. Luckily, It was divided into three parts: Africa, the subcontinent, and China. Unfortunately, we learned nothing about Latin America, even though the U.S. was fighting several unnecessary wars there (under Ronald Reagan).
The following year, we studied European history — most of it, about the Soviet Union and Britain and some apparently uninhabited lands in-between.
The rest of my elementary and secondary history education revolved around American history. And in those classes, we learned a lot about events and wars, but little about the Constitution. I had to learn about that on my own. I could have studied American history in college, but by then I was so burned out on dry lessons in the American Revolution and Civil War that I studied journalism, archaeology, and Latin American history instead.