The wingnut reaction to Hillary Clinton’s historic speech on international LGBT issues has been predictably lame, so it’s no surprise that Porno Pete has decided to weigh in, expressing his heartfelt support for the most homophobic nations on earth and their right to discriminate against gay people however they see fit. Here, let us comment on his latest emanation, and then move on to making fun of the WorldNetDaily column Peter posted along with it:

With their new escalation of promoting homosexual behavior to other nations through U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have raised America’s defiance toward her Creator to a new level — while needlessly alienating nations less morally compromised than our own. Not content to keep our decadence between our shores, the United States – through aggressively pro-“gay” Democratic administrations – now demands that other countries sink to our level by embracing homosexuality as a “human right.”

Nations “less morally compromised than our own” = places like Iran and Uganda. Those countries didn’t stop killing pr wanting to kill gay people just because it wasn’t “cool” anymore.

Who knew that when President Ronald Reagan spoke idealistically about America becoming a “shining city on the hill,” that city would turn out to be Sodom? Hillary earned plaudits from the Left with her U.N. speech on international “gay rights,” but her words were an affront to our Declaration of Independence, which appeals to “Nature and Nature’s God.”

Americans gang rape angels? [Pssst, Porno Pete: if you don't get that joke, it's because you're not smart enough to read the Sodom and Gomorrah story for what it actually says, rather than what your homophobic twit brain needs it to say.]

By redefining “human rights” to include the normalization of same-sex behaviors and gender confusion, Obama and Clinton have turned God’s natural moral order on its head. There are many countries – including Muslim-dominated nations and major powers like Russia – that reject homosexuality. By pushing sexual deviance on these nations, we only confirm their perception of America as a corrupt and declining – and very arrogant — superpower.

And wingnuts are so well known as crusaders against American imperialism and colonialism.

America, rooted in the Bible, historically embraced anti-sodomy laws, but now we are in the grip of an unprecedented moral and spiritual crisis that blackens our reputation worldwide. As one Muslim tweeted in reaction to Obama’s international “gay rights” plan: “There is a great divide between the Founding Fathers and the pro-gay regime ruling America [today].”

“One Muslim tweeted.” Well, that sounds like a consensus to me!

Aberrant sexuality is not a fundamental liberty, and defending morality is not hateful “bigotry.” Hillary claims, “Being gay is not a Western invention, it is a human reality.” But homosexuality is about changeable behavior – not intrinsic, innate identity – as evidenced by countless men and women who now live happy lives apart from homosexuality, despite once considering themselves “gay” or “lesbian.”

Actually, Hillary is right and Porno Pete needs to stick to fetish photography. Meanwhile we’ll keep on keepin’ on trying to keep track of all the “ex-gay” leaders who are coming out of the closet, again.

(There are no “Adultery Pride Parades” or “Porn-Users Pride Months.”)

Well, Pete, considering what you post on your “family blog,” maybe you should lobby for the second one. Might bring a few more hits to the old AFTAH site.

All Americans who love God and respect His wonderful design for mankind should be ashamed of Obama’s and Hillary’s campaign to force a deeply flawed sexual ideology on innocent nations that do NOT want to emulate American decadence.

That’s the end of his press release, and I feel like it’s missing an “Allahu akbar!”

Anyway.

So Pete links to another wingnut called Bob Unruh, who wrote about the same thing. Let’s make fun of him for a minute. First, the headlines:

Obama offers plan for U.S. to be global LGBT sex cop

Wait, have we moved onto the Bob Unruh guy? Because that sounds like something from Americans For Truth or some other similar kinky sexytime website. Sub-headline:

Wants to import homosexuals with special asylum privileges

Well that’s just crazy. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council hate group told us several years ago that gays should be an “export,” NOT an “import.” [It's because our currency is weak.]

And, you know, honestly, having read Unruh’s article, there’s nothing in there that remotely tops those two headlines. Oh sure, there’s mewling from Matt Barber and Randy Thomasson — Unruh basically called the first three third-rate wingnuts in his rolodex, I guess — but nothing that interesting.

In summary, anti-gay wingnuts have looked at this issue and decided that it’s best to side with nations like Iran, where they still hang people for being gay.

I wouldn’t expect any better from them, and neither should you.

The Associated Press:

The Obama administration’s declaration that it plans to use foreign assistance, international diplomacy and political asylum to promote gay rights abroad is a momentous step that could dangerously backfire if not pursued with delicacy and an appreciation of how the challenges faced by gays and lesbians vary by nation, human rights activists said.

President Barack Obama, in a memorandum to executive departments, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a speech before the U.N. Human Rights Council, issued a coordinated denunciation Tuesday of anti-gay discrimination, stating that equal treatment of gay, lesbian and transgender people was an explicit U.S. foreign policy goal.

The White House said the twin moves represented the U.S. government’s first comprehensive strategy to combat sexual orientation-based human rights abuses around the world. Gay rights groups cheered the actions, noting that gays and lesbians can be arrested, tortured and even executed in some countries.

Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out, a group that monitors religious organizations with anti-gay views, listed Russia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Iran and Zimbabwe among the nations that had recently “declared war on sexual minorities” and said that he hoped they would be chastened by the administration’s blunt talk.

“This was one of those times where our nation demonstrated true international leadership and made me incredibly proud to be an American,” Besen said. “There were no carefully crafted and focus grouped code words that sugarcoated the abuses — just the honest truth spoken from the heart.”

(Weekly Column)

I knew Russia was likely to embrace homophobia the moment I read that approximately 1.25 million Russians have emigrated from the nation in the past decade. Population experts say that the mass exodus is comparable in size to the migration following the Bolshevik Revolution.

This one-time superpower is disintegrating into a superstitious country more concerned about angels than economics. Each day, for example, tens of thousands of Russians stand in line for up to 12 hours in frigid weather to kiss a glass covered case that they believe holds the Virgin Mary’s belt.

To top it off, Vladimir Putin’s voracious appetite for power is morphing Russia into an unsettling hybrid that vacillates between pseudo-democracy and sort-of dictatorship. The faltering of this country, which has the world’s 11^th largest economy, would be significantly worse if it were not for the good fortune of having oil and gas exports.

In this politically stagnating and spiritually stifling environment, it is predictable that the city of Saint Petersburg would consider a totalitarian bill imposing fines for the so-called promotion of gay “propaganda.” If it were to pass, anyone who committed “public acts” promoting homosexuality, bisexuality or transgender identity to minors could pay up to 3,000 rubles while an organization could pay 10,000 to 50,000 rubles.

Such an outright assault on expression and speech are not the product of a free country and rightfully raised red flags within the U.S. State Department.

“Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights,” the State Department said. “We have called on Russian officials to safeguard these freedoms, and to foster an environment which promotes respect for the rights of all citizens.”

Without exception, loser nations are always the most homophobic. Leaders of such lands desperately look for scapegoats to distract the public from noticing their dismal failures. They also find the promotion of religious extremism useful, because it is more difficult to vilify leaders who present themselves as deified.

The LGBT community rarely thrives in backward places that promote ignorance over education and medieval views over modernity. As these intellectual swamps sink, sexual minorities make ideal targets because their members are often isolated and deeply closeted, vulnerable to persecution, and don’t have the numbers to fight back.

Russia is not the only loser nation where leaders manipulate the public through virulent gay bashing. Brutal Zimbabwe dictator, Robert Mugabe, called homosexuality un-Christian and un-African last week, and then threatened to severely discipline anyone in a gay relationship.

“Do not get tempted into that (homosexuality). If you do fall for it we will punish you severely,” said Mugabe.

This warning comes from a loathsome tyrant who is single-handedly responsible for this nation’s despair and disrepair. By attacking LGBT people, the potentate hopes to mask his misdeeds. Anti-gay hate groups, such as the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, aid this criminal by allowing him to pose as pious.

Even in some advanced nations there is the threat of retrograde preachers who have no qualms about dragging their countries into the gutter for personal riches and political gain. In Brazil, televangelist Silas Malafaia has become the country’s Pat Robertson, politicizing culture war issues like LGBT equality.

The New York Times reports that the self-righteous televangelist is transported in a private jet and that his fingers are “adorned with diamond-encrusted gold rings.”

Sure, the Bible says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” But one gets the distinct impression that Malafaia would solve this problem by hiring an architect to build a hollow needle of gold the size of the Lincoln Tunnel and drive through it in his Mercedes-Benz.

Homophobia is a mark of failing nations. Even in America, it is the emblem of poor, second-tier states. It is the signpost of inferior cities that perpetually fail to reach their potential and can’t figure out why.

It is not that anti-gay sentiment on its own causes the collapse of such places. It is that homophobia virtually never stands alone. It can only flower in corrupt environments that lack basic freedom, devalue education, limit liberty, have huge income disparities, degrade women, discourage religious pluralism, mock intellectuals, and promote superstition at the expense of science.

As a general rule, places that are leaders in passing anti-gay laws are losers in virtually every other category that defines successful, civilized societies.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

From Doug Ireland, Gay City News:

St. Petersburg: How you can help fighting anti-gay laws in Russia?

Join the international Campaign: 10’000 letters to the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations

Many of you have been asking us how you can help to fight the bill in the most effective way. This Press Release aims to answer your questions as well as bring more insight about the context.

In the last few days, GayRussia has been consulting with its activists, other Russian based LGBT activist groups and legal specialists to think of how to best address the current circumstances.

First, you need to know that the bill is politically motivated: Russia’s Parliamentary election will take place on December 4^th and targeting LGBT is a way to earn support from religious and nationalist organizations. The bill received support from Valentina Matvienko the former Governor of the city who is now the speaker of the Upper Chamber of Parliament. Politicians in Moscow said that they are ready to implement a similar law in the Russian capital but also at the Federal level.

Second, we want to stress that the ban of the promotion of LGBT rights on the public place is de facto enforced in Russia since 2005. Implementing this law is only materializing what has been a sad reality for years. For several years, GayRussia has been denouncing the absence of freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom of association for Russian LGBT. As a reminder, over 300 public events applied by GayRussia have been banned, LGBT groups partnering with us have been denied registration by the government in several regions, our activists have been often fined, arrested, judged and humiliated. They introduced 20 cases with the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations. Russian prosecution refused to open criminal investigation against Mufti Talgat Tadjudin, the Governor of Tambov, Oleg Betin, and the former Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, for calling hatred or to kill LGBT people. The Russian Courts even legalized the insult “gomik” (faggot) which was used by Yuri Luzhkov while referring to gays.

Third, we see this law as a “unique” chance for the Russian LGBT community to re-mobilize itself as it did in 2002 upon the attempt to re-criminalize homosexuality and in 2006, on the eve of the first Moscow Gay Pride.

Russia’s LGBT community has historically been divided and GayRussia would like to hope that today’s attacks by politicians in St. Petersburg will serve as a lesson for LGBT groups in St. Petersburg who have been appearing in the media since 2005 arguing that both “gay prides” and “gay marriage” are provocations.

This anti-LGBT law is a chance for Russian LGBT people to work against homophobe politicians and government rather than to work against each other. Our enemies are homophobes: LGBT rights campaigners should not attack each other. If we stand united, we have more chance than if we stand in two opposite sides where we only fuel the anti-gay rhetoric.

Fourth, the St Petersburg law is nothing new in Russia. Similar laws have already come into force in Ryazan (in 2006) and in Arkhangelsk (in 2011).  More frightening, it is being discussed in Moscow, and also in Ukraine. It was also discussed in Lithuania in the past years.

GayRussia is the only Russian LGBT group which campaigned against the anti-gay law in Ryazan in 2009 when Nikolay Baev and Irina Fedotova (Fet) were arrested, detained and judged for holding a banner in front of a local school stating that “Homosexuality is normal”. The Constitutional Court gave a decision arguing that the law did not contradict with the Constitution. The activists lodged a case with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and with the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva.

These two cases are today a chance to make anti-gay laws history not only in Russia but in the whole of Europe.

The faster the European Court of Human Rights will open the case of Nikolay Bayev against Russia, the faster we will get a decision. And this decision will be binding for Russia. More important, it will make a European precedent which will serve Ryazan, Arkhangelsk, Ukraine, Lithuania and maybe more.

JOIN THE INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN!

At this stage, your support and your mobilization should be thought to help achieving a global solution to this problem, not only in St. Petersburg but also, in Ryazan, in Arkhangelsk, in Moscow, in Ukraine and elsewhere.

By asking the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee to prioritize the case of Bayev and Fedotova, you can make a difference, globally. GayRussia propose template letters that you can print and send. An envelope, a stamp, and a piece of paper is all you need !

If 10’000 of you write a letter to these two institutions, IT CAN MAKE A CHANGE. Each of your letters will be filed in each case. The more letters are filed, the more chances we have to show the importance of these cases.

Templates of letters to send are available here:

http://www.gayrussia.eu/en/campaigns/model_letters.php

It will then be on our side to do the job and ensure that we win the case. We assure you that our efforts to fight in Court and win the case will be tireless and unstoppable as our previous campaigns have always been. Our aim is to defeat our Constitutional Court and our homophobic government. This year, GayRussia won the first ever LGBT case in Russia in the ban of the Moscow Pride at the European Court of Human Rights.

Oh no, this is distressing!  The leader a very small, largely irrelevant hate group has a problem with the proposal for more gender-neutral passports, which is funny, because wingnuts don’t tend to be very well-traveled people.   Oh, and by the way, apparently the State Department caved to the loonies on the issue, which is completely lame:

The State Department has backed away from a suggestion that would have changed the “mother” and “father” titles in American passports to make them more “inclusive.”

Had Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s amendment been approved, passports would have instead listed “mother or parent 1″ and “father or parent 2″ in order to accommodate homosexuals who are raising children.

Or grandparents or step-parents or aunts and uncles…

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) tells OneNewsNow the proposal, although short-lived, represents another marker in society’s decline.

“Two ‘moms,’ so-called, or two ‘daddies’ is not a real family,” he contends. “It’s an artificial construct; it’s a copy cat of the real deal, and to see it all formalized by the state is a scary thing.”

Two grandparents raising children? Not a real family. An mother and a stepfather? A single mom with kids? Not a real family. Nope, if you follow Peter’s “logic,” no families are real unless they involve one man’s sperm magic conquering one chattel wife’s egg factory, and stuff.

He suggests the action was simply another Washington-generated advance for liberal causes.

“If the Republican Party is going to be AWOL on these homosexual activist agenda items, then Americans are going to have to start looking towards a third party or some other force that’s going to take on this agenda,” LaBarbera contends. “If the Democrats are pushing the agenda and the Republicans remain silent, then the homosexual agenda moves forward.”

Please, wingnuts, look toward a third party. We’ll get so much more done, so much faster, if you do.

In a long interview with Kerry Eleveld about the role Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has played in bringing LGBT equality to the forefront at home and around the world, we learn that, unfortunately, as much good as she’s been doing, she’s somehow still not willing to take the plunge and support full equality.  This is less of a criticism than a friendly encouragement, because Hillary really is so good on so many issues.  Eleveld describes a gay pride celebration held at the State Department last summer:

Displaying an uncanny depth of understanding for the challenges that many LGBT youth experience, Clinton spoke of tragedies that would only come to national attention months later after a spate of heart-wrenching teen suicides dominated headlines for weeks. She called on the staff members before her to help create a safe space for gays and lesbians everywhere, “Particularly young people, particularly teenagers who still, today, have such a difficult time and who, still, in numbers far beyond what should ever happen, take their own lives rather than live that life.”

Men and women around the world were being “harassed, beaten, subjected to sexual violence, even killed, because of who they are and whom they love,” she said.

“This is a human rights issue,” Clinton told the rapt audience. She ad-libbed, recalling an oft-quoted line from a landmark speech on women’s rights at a U.N. conference in China: “Just as I was very proud to say the obvious more than 15 years ago in Beijing—that human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights—well, let me say today that human rights are gay rights, and gay rights are human rights, once and for all.”

But yet…

Marriage seemed like the place to start, since Clinton had been caught off guard by a recent inquiry on the issue while visiting Australia. Her husband has said that he now supports full marriage equality: Many of his gay friends are in committed relationships, former president Bill Clinton said in 2009. As far as marriage goes, he said, he had just been “hung up about the word.”

Did she share his experience? I wondered. Was she at odds with President Barack Obama’s stated position in support of civil unions but against marriage equality?

But on the phone, Clinton is circumspect about her husband’s comments. “Well, I share his experience because we obviously share a lot of the same friends, but I have not changed my position,” she says without elaborating. The secretary wasn’t taking any political bait, nor was she going to tangle with anything that could figure negatively for her boss.

Unfortunate.

But I’m going to make a prediction here: both the President and the Secretary will be on record supporting marriage equality soon after the 2012 elections. Cowardly, yes. But such is politics…

Jeremy Hooper’s prediction is a bit different:

So it’s pretty much official: Hillary Clinton wants to run for President in 2016.

Heh.

In the Good Old Days, when a person would apply for a passport, it would list their ‘Mother’ and their ‘Father’ so there would be no question which parents are packing which kind of genitals.  Now, in the apocalyptic world of 2011, that is changing:

The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, the State Department says.

“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. “They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’”

A statement on the State Department website noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.” The statement didn’t note if it was for child applications only.

Makes sense. Far more than reflecting the fact that gay people parent children, some children are raised by grandparents, step-parents, aunts, uncles, etc. It seems like this just makes the process simpler.

Of course, we have to be Fair And Balanced, so what do some wingnuts, perhaps some hate group leaders think about this?

“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, agreed. “It’s part of an overall attempt at political correctness to diminish the distinction between men and women and to somehow suggest you don’t need both a father and a mother to raise a child successfully,” said Jeffress. “(This decision) was made to make homosexual couples feel more comfortable in rearing children.”

It’s important that passports note which penis made the conquering thrust that resulted in little Bobby and Suzie, said Tony Perkins.

Now, this seems like just more of the same Religious Right whining that happens every time something occurs that doesn’t reflect their pretend version of reality, and it is, but Amanda Marcotte noticed something different:

I must say I detect a note of malaise. The professional bigots aren’t really bringing their A game anymore, but instead copying and pasting the same anti-gay screed they’ve trotted out a million times before.

[...]

These quotes could be about pretty much anything, if you think about it. They’re totally phoning it in. The heavy use of scare quotes where they’re inappropriate? Check. Suggesting that it’s pointless to have children for any other reason than to prove the virility of heterosexual men? Check. Dropping the word “homosexual” a lot in hopes that people think about butt sex instead of two same-sex parents trying to corral a toddler through airline security, just like everyone else? Check. Suggesting that the only acceptable response to homosexuality from the government is ghettoizing people, depriving them of their basic freedom of movement, and seeking ways to shake their finger at them for who they are? Check.

Now that I read it, she’s right. Perkins’ comments, as well as the pastor’s, are incredibly lazy. It’s like they know they’ve lost, and their quotes reflect that resignation. Come on, Religious Right, buck up! You’ve got so much to live for, even if you’re going to lose the culture wars!

As a public service, Amanda re-wrote the statements of Tony Perkins and Robert Jeffess, and any wingnuts reading this would do well to take a few pointers, because otherwise, we’re going to get really bored over here, copy/pasting the same old boring Religious Right Mad Libs. Check that out over at Pandagon.

Here are the other things open in my browser that I didn’t have time to write about today. Read them and write me two pages on each, single spaced:

1. There’s some new ludicrous group of gay activists who are against marriage equality. Oh, you’re sooooo 90′s, sooooo Berkeley, sooooo counter-culture. Whatever. Grow up.

2. Wingnuts are trying to take away marriage equality rights in New Hampshire, because we must always remember that it is ALWAYS about hurting gay families for them, 24/7.

3. The “Institute on Religion and Democracy” is very upset with Hillary Clinton’s State Department for not protecting the rights of anti-gay genocidal thugs in Third World nations.

4. A new poll says that, even before DADT repeal, the LGBT community’s feelings about President Obama were a lot sunnier than a lot of people would have you believe.

The “culture war“, now more than 30 years old – today is far from the obscure reference cloaked and made fun of by the little quotation marks which try to create the impression that the culture war is a euphemism and not really a war at all. The truth is very different, because when people’s lives are destroyed through the actions of other people – even people on the other side of the planet, even without the use of conventional weapons – and when people die - it is a war in every real sense of the word.

Far from fading out over time, it is a war that has escalated if anything – and now employs advanced weapons such as the internet, science, medicine, psychology and multimedia – along with more traditional hardware like covert operations, surveillance, intelligence, counter-intelligence, propaganda, politics, dirty tricks, entrapment, investigative journalism, expose’s, espionage, infiltration – and denial. (Read More)

Do you know who is spending your tax dollars in Uganda?

No? Neither do a number of organizations that have sued the State Department for access to this information — and have received little data in return.

The international AIDS charity AVERT hosts a web page which diplomatically explains the complexity (aka unaccountability) of foreign-aid recipients to U.S. taxpayers.

At a very basic level, it is apparent that U.S. tax dollars are transferred — in amounts counted in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars — to “prime partners” who then reallocate (some might say, launder) the foreign aid to “subpartners.” Each new layer of aid-laundering reduces the accountability of that aid to its original purpose.

Uganda is one of the largest single African recipients of PEPFAR HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment aid.

In Uganda, according to AVERT, two of the leading “prime partners” are Catholic Relief Services (which steers Ugandans toward abstinence-only education and prevention) and the conservative Children’s AIDS Fund — formerly the Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy — which likewise denies Ugandans easy access to comprehensive education and prevention methods.

Uganda’s designated prime partners contract out their aid allocations to some reputable outfits — but they also hire the likes of Uganda’s Martin Ssempa and other “faith-based” antigay vigilante leaders that have used the aid to promote hate-based myths about LGBT Ugandans: Specifically, the myths that LGBT people are pedophiles, that they “recruit” heterosexuals, that they are lust-crazed and rapacious vagabonds, and that they are primarily responsible for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Please contact your congressional representative and senators. Ask them to demand full transparency and accountability of foreign-aid prime partners and subpartners to national policy objectives. All partners should comply with U.S. and international protocols for human rights and individual liberty — including freedom from ethnic, religious, and sexual discrimination, and freedom from religion-based bias in partners’ offerings of education, services, and materials.

No recipient of federal aid should offer health care or advice that is officially discouraged or rejected by the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, or American Psychological Association.

If a recipient or sub-recipient of U.S. aid enforces religious principles that prevent it from providing comprehensive and non-sectarian education, prevention, and treatment to all, then its access to federal aid should be eliminated or tightly regulated.

The prime ministers of Britain and Canada last week protested, in the strongest terms, Uganda’s plan to execute its sexually active LGBT and HIV-positive citizens — and to imprison their families, doctors, clergy if they fail to turn in patients and loved ones to the police.

The two nations’ top leaders implied that Uganda might lose foreign aid and membership in the Commonwealth if it proceeds.

Compare these condemnations to the official statement of the highest-ranking U.S. executive-branch official, Eric Goosby. He is the head of the U.S. State Department’s foreign-aid program for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, known as PEPFAR.

As Truth Wins Out pointed out on Friday, Goosby said:

My role is to be supportive and helpful to the patients who need these services. It is not to tell a country how to put forward their legislation. But I will engage them in conversation around my concern and knowledge of what this is going to do to that population, and our ability to stop the movement of the virus into the general population.

Update: Goosby’s statement is much softer and more generous to Uganda than a U.S. embassy officer’s prior statement:

“If adopted, a bill further criminalizing homosexuality would constitute a significant step backwards for the protection of human rights in Uganda,” the embassy’ public affairs officer Joann Lockard said in an email. “We urge states to take all necessary measures to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests, or detention.”

Americans must take urgent action to let the State Department know that it IS their job to prevent the misuse of taxpayers’ HIV/AIDS dollars to slaughter gay people, enrich evangelicals, and deny Africans access to condoms.

Please write letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding a hold on Uganda’s PEPFAR funding until strict human-rights, privacy, and free-speech controls can be imposed upon all PEPFAR aid. PEPFAR aid must not be given to sectarian religious interests, especially those with violent and inhumane intentions.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
(202) 647-4000

Please THANK Rep. Tammy Baldwin for her support and urge her office to continue fighting against The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 by e-mailing Amber Shipley:

Amber.Shipley @ mail.house.gov

Please THANK Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for her support via phone call or letter and urge her to continue using her position in the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs to hold Uganda accountable.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
2470 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC 20515-0918
(202) 225-3931