You see, if gay guys stop having sex and using poppers, all the AIDS will go away. Because that’s the problem with sub-Saharan Africa.

It happened just before the black-out, but no less than Rick Warren sharply rebuked Bryan Fischer for his HIV/AIDS denialism. Apparently the American Family Association has chosen to isolate itself further, even within the conservative Evangelical world. They’re earning their hate group label, yes indeed.

[h/t Joe]

Janice Shaw Crouse of the Concerned Women for America is very concerned! You see, the Obama administration is upping its contributions in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, and they’ve appointed Ellen DeGeneres as a “special envoy” to raise awareness, etc. This is a problem because:

“She is openly lesbian and obviously is an activist on the issue of homosexual rights and has taken a very active role in pushing the homosexual agenda. So for her to be the person who’s out front and the face of the Obama administration in the whole fight against AIDS I think is inappropriate,” Crouse decides.

She is also concerned about how the appointee will be received in sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS has been rampant. “There are plenty of Christian nations in that region and some Muslim nations in that region, so she is not going to receive a very warm welcome there or be an appropriate person to be the face of the fight against AIDS,” the CWA spokesperson warns.

Janice Shaw Crouse is well aware that certain nations like Uganda would rather kill gays than cure AIDS, and she wants people to know that she stands on the side of the oppressors, unlike that Ellen lesbian, I guess is the message here?

Whatever.

Ian Ollis, a member of the South African parliament, paints a sobering picture of LGBTQs’ legal and cultural status on the African continent. Recall that parts of Nigeria are under sharia law, which calls for people convicted of homosexual activity to be stoned to death. Cameroon is arresting people with a Y chromosome for looking feminine, and may soon change its laws to equate homosexuality with pedophilia. According to Amnesty International, one Cameroonian man, thrown in jail for homosexual activity, has been abandoned by his family, which has decided he is a “wizard.” Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe unabashedly trashes homosexuals at state events.

In other words, the same tired hatreds and mindless canards that the LGBTQ rights movement is gradually overcoming in the US still hold terrible power over people’s lives in many countries in Africa.

South Africa is leading the charge against bigotry on at least one front. Ollis applauds his own country’s introduction of a UN Human Rights Council resolution supporting equal rights for people of all sexual orientations. South Africa apparently pissed off a lot of other African countries in doing this, including Cameroon and stone-throwing Nigeria; the Egypt delegation walked out. But it passed–23 votes to 19. An awful lot of culture change needs to take place before gays are safe in Africa.

Check out this interactive world map on the home page of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association. It allows you to choose various situations from a drop-down list to see where sexual minority status is and isn’t legal and/or protected. “Female to Female Relationships,” for example, or  ”Second Parent Adoption,” or “Incitement to hatred based on sexual orientation prohibited.” You can mouse over individual countries for more information. The data aren’t complete, but they make a nice starting point if you’re trying to learn more about legal situations around the world.

And by clicking here (PDF), you can read ILGA’s May 2011 report on state-sponsored homophobia, which lists all 76 countries where homosexuality is illegal. Here, from that report, are the countries where homosexual acts are not only illegal but also punishable by the death penalty: Mauritania, Sudan, 12 northern states in Nigeria, the southern part of Somalia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.

Because Christian pastors had put his name onto a public blacklist, gay gospel singer Daniel Dyson fled the violently homophobic Uganda for the Bay Area. His story is worth reading. He didn’t leave right away or go underground–instead, he bravely took to the Ugandan radio waves defending the LGBTQ community. Soon he was kidnapped and beaten. He made his way to the US, found a job at an advocacy organization in the Castro district, and says “I can sleep peacefully.”

As if they suspect that their efforts to pray gay people straight won’t suffice, Christians are now demonstrating against homosexuality in Ghana. Excuse me–”gayism.”

Sigh.

[h/t JoeMyGod.]

As we fight this particular culture war here in the US, let’s not forget things are as bad or worse elsewhere. Uganda’s persecution of gays is notorious. A gay Malaysian pastor makes global headlines by getting married (which is both politically and religiously courageous of him). And it’s not just right-wing evangelical Americans forcing people to try to pray away the gay. This fawning article in an online journal called Peace FM in Ghana, West Africa details the plans of “man of God” Prophet Dominic Ackah Manlenzie, who is setting up a “rehab” center for gay and lesbian Ghanaians. This man preaches that homosexuality arises from satanic influence and urges people to “do something about the problem.”

I’ve never been to Ghana, and I don’t know how robust their marketplace of ideas is. Manlenzie is quoted as saying it’s wrong to think homosexuality is genetic, and it reassures me that he feels the need to bring that up–it suggests that the idea has currency there. (It’s heartening, too, to see that six of the eight comments posted on this article call Manlenzie out, one of them citing the American Psychological Association and the LA Times‘ coverage of its condemnation of ex-gay therapy.) But I have lived and worked in parts of the world where there are no cultural countercurrents to oppose ideas like his, where there’s hardly any Internet access and virtually zero books. Lots of gay people live their entire lives in places where they never even hear about progressive ways to view themselves. When I think about that, I have more sympathy for plans to saturate the developing world with laptops. I imagine some gay Ghanaian reading about Manlenzie, then clicking away from Peace FM to that commenter’s link. And then maybe deciding he doesn’t have to listen to every man of God he meets.

People who haven’t dissected a pig since high school won’t want to miss MSNBC host Rachel Maddow’s dissection tonight of Ugandan Member of Parliament David Bahati, whose support for antigay genocide in that country has won him financial and political support from U.S. Republicans and evangelicals.

Part one of the interview:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(Alternate video link via YouTube)

Part two:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(Alternate video link via YouTube)

Background and primer on the Uganda-U.S. antigay genocide campaign:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Current TV’s Vanguard program aired a documentary last week about the U.S. evangelical and ex-gay role in fomenting antigay hate and violence in Africa.

If you live outside the United States, or who wish to have a permanent digital copy of the documentary, you’re in luck: The program is now available as an mp4 file download.

You may also be able to watch the documentary in short clips online. International viewers: Please let us know whether either method works for you.

Here are the first 10 minutes of “Missionaries of Hate”; parts 2 through 4 are not yet available online:

Here’s an extended interview with David Bahati, the mastermind of the Uganda antigay genocide campaign: (Read More)

The South Africa Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (SA GLAAD) has drafted a protest e-mail regarding Malawi’s arrest, remand, conviction, sentencing and incarceration of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, Amnesty International’s prisoners of conscience.

Please consider writing your own messages to the following officials, using the following bullet points to craft a brief message in your own words.

To: justice@malawi.gov.mw, sg-justice@sdnp.org.mw, lawcom@lawcom.mw, lawcom@sdnp.org.mw, highcommalai@telkomsa.net, distms@malawi.gov.mw, infopol@africa-online.net, chadzapg@malawi.gov.mw,

cc: InfoDesk@ohchr.org, nationalinstitutions@ohchr.org, gmagazzeni@ohchr.org, civilsocietyunit@ohchr.org, dexrel@ohchr.org

Subject: Free Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza now

• Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were disingenuously convicted of a supposed indecent act: Daring to hold a symbolic marriage ceremony.
• The law under which they were convicted is a remnant from the Western colonial era.
• The pair has been adopted as “prisoners of conscience” by Amnesty International. The governments of Great Britain and the United States of America, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, have vocally opposed the conviction. The UNHCR said that protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a fundamental human right that cannot be overruled on cultural grounds.
• The sentence is inhumane. The refusal of bail and the remand of Steven and Tiwonge are abhorrent.
• It is time for Malawi to rid itself from the defunct colonial codified discriminations and human rights oppressions.

On these bases, Malawi has no ethical or cultural justification for continuing to incarcerate these men and others like them.