Before the New York Times suddenly discovered the story, in-depth reporting on Uganda was mostly limited to Rachel’s show and the LGBT blogosphere. But now the rest of the mainstream media has finally taken notice. Here’s Rachel discussing the Uganda situation, the American evangelical connections, and The Family with Andrea Mitchell:

(h/t Good-As-You)

The New York Times was late to the game. But, now that the newspaper is paying attention, they are doing an excellent job spotlighting the dire situation for LGBT people in Uganda. Hopefully, this will drive home the message to the would-be mass murderers in Uganda’s government that there will be a heavy price to pay if they continue promoting butchery and barbarism.

NYT Editorial:

Uganda’ government, which has a shameful record of discrimination against gay men and lesbians, is now considering legislation that would impose the death sentence for homosexual behavior. The United States and others need to make clear to the Ugandan government that such barbarism is intolerable and will make it an international pariah.

Corruption and repression ‚Äî including violence against women and children and abuse of prisoners ‚Äî are rife in Uganda. According to The Times’ Jeffrey Gettleman, officially sanctioned homophobia is particularly acute. Gay Ugandans are tormented with beatings, blackmail, death threats and what has been described as “correctional rape.”

The government’ venom is chilling: “Homosexuals can forget about human rights,” James Nsaba Buturo, who holds the cynically titled position of minister of ethics and integrity, said recently.

What makes this even worse is that three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” gays and lesbians have been widely discredited in the United States, helped feed this hatred. Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer gave a series of talks in Uganda last March to thousands of police officers, teachers and politicians in which, according to participants and audio recordings, they claimed that gays and lesbians are a threat to Bible-based family values.

Now the three Americans are saying they had no intention of provoking the anger that, just one month later, led to the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. You can’t preach hate and not accept responsibility for the way that hate is manifested.

We don’t have much hope that they will atone for their acts. But right now the American government, and others, should make clear to Uganda that if this legislation becomes law, it will lose millions of dollars in foreign aid and be shunned globally.

In a harsh rebuke of the increasingly extreme United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, a major Catholic health group backed the Senate’s health-care compromise on abortion. The Catholic Health Association said that the most important thing that Congress could do was pass a bill that would cover the nation’s uninsured.

Needless to say, the uncompromising, obstinate Bishops proclaimed the compromise “morally unacceptable.

I suppose the Bishops believe that leaving people uninsured to die in the cold in order to use health reform as a platform for abortion politics is the moral and ethical route.

The current crop of conservative Bishops appear hardhearted and clueless to the concerns of real people who desperately need help. They seem to believe that priestly polemics will solve the health care problem in this country.

“The Catholic Health Association does not represent the teaching of the Catholic Church on the non-negotiable defense of innocent life,” the conservative Catholic activist Deal Hudson said in a statement, calling the association’ move “utterly offensive.”

The difference between The Catholic Health Association and ideologues like Hudson, is that the hospitals actually deal with uninsured sick people. Well, Hudson and his ilk also deal with sick people – but in their case, a good shrink and medication is all that is needed.

Good for the Catholic Health Association for standing up to the extremists in the Catholic Church and the Republican Party.

In other Catholic News:

The Associated Press reports that two more Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland have resigned in the wake of a damning investigation into decades of church cover-up of child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.

The bishops, Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field, offered an apology to child-abuse victims as they announced their resignations during Christmas Mass on Friday. Priests read the statement to worshipers throughout the archdiocese, home to a quarter of Ireland’ 4 million Catholics.

In his Christmas sermon, Archbishop Martin said the church for too long had placed its self-interest above the rights of its parishioners, particularly innocent children. “It has been a painful year,” he told worshipers. “But the church today may well be a better and safer place than was the church of 25 years ago ‚Äî when all looked well, but where deep shadows were kept buried.”

Of course, we know this is nonsense. Until the Catholic Church does the following, there will be abuse:

1) Allow openly gay, sexually active priests. Doing so will attract psycho-sexually healthy gay men who will not use the priesthood to hide their sexuality – and in many cases use their power to take advantage of the young and vulnerable. Out gay priests will look for age-appropriate partners.

2) Allow women into the priesthood. This would immediately break up the good old closet boys network.

3) Allow married heterosexual priests. Just as it is imperative to attract sexually mature gay people, it is just as key to attract sexually healthy heterosexuals. Having a team of immature, pent-up priests is a recipe for disaster.

Until these rule changes are made, the Vatican is just spinning us.

Last night, Rachel Maddow aired an excellent 10-minute news segment about the Republican and evangelical leaders who, despite deep ties to Uganda, refuse to tell their close friends in the Ugandan leadership not to proceed with an antigay genocide and mass suppression of the families, doctors, and pastors of allegedly homosexual Ugandans.

The segment implicates Senators James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., members of The Family, mega-evangelist Rick Warren, and others in silent complicity with genocide.

Watch:

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

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and journalist Jeff Sharlet on Monday discussed Uganda’s “Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” which would execute sexually active LGBT and HIV-positive Ugandans and imprison, for three years, any relative, pastor, or doctor who failed to report an LGBT person to police within 24 hours.

Sharlet described the connections between leading U.S. Christian Rightist Republican leaders, evangelist Rick Warren, and antigay Ugandan leaders such as President Yoweri Museveni; pastor Martin Ssempa; and David Bahati, the Uganda “ethics” minister who is leading the battle to enact the legislation.

NEW YORK — Truth Wins Out (TWO) today urged world leaders and members of Congress to skip the National Prayer Breakfast, February 4th, in protest of “The Family’ (aka The Fellowship) direct role in promoting a bill that would lead to severe human rights abuses against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Uganda.

“The National Prayer Breakfast is giving legitimacy to those who promote barbarism in the name of the Bible,” said TWO’ Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We hope that world leaders who care about human rights will reconsider attending this year’ breakfast. To say grace with the people pushing this hateful and dehumanizing bill in Uganda would be disgraceful.”

On National Public Radio’ Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed author Jeff Sharlet (pictured), whose book, “The Family”, is a groundbreaking expose on the clandestine group in charge of the National Prayer Breakfast. On the program, Sharlet revealed a “smoking gun”, tying The Family directly to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, which threatens liberty and life for all GLBT people living in Uganda. Here is the key part of the transcript:

GROSS: So you’re reporting the story for the first time today, and you found this story — this direct connection between The Family and the proposed [Uganda anti-gay hate] legislation by following the money?

SHARLET: Yes, it’ — I always say that the family is secretive, but not secret. You can go and look at 990s, tax forms and follow the money through these organizations that The Family describe as invisible. But you go and you look. You follow that money. You look at their archives. You do interviews where you can. It’ not so invisible anymore. So that’ how working with some research colleagues we discovered that David Bahati, the man behind this legislation, is really deeply, deeply involved in The Family’ work in Uganda, that the ethics minister of Uganda, Museveni’ kind of right hand man, a guy named Nsaba Buturo, is also helping to organize The Family’ National Prayer Breakfast. And here’ a guy who has been the main force for this Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda’ executive office and has been very vocal about what he’ doing, and in a rather extreme and hateful way. But these guys are not so much under the influence of The Family. They are, in Uganda, The Family.

GROSS: So how did you find out that Bahati is directly connected to The Family? You’ve described him as a core member of The Family. And this is the person who introduced the anti-gay legislation in Uganda that calls for the death penalty for some gay people.

SHARLET: Looking at the, The Family’ 990s, where they’re moving their money to — into this African leadership academy called Cornerstone, which runs two programs: Youth Corps, which has described its in the past as an international quote, “invisible family binding together world leaders,” and also, an alumni organization designed to place Cornerstone grads — graduates of this sort of very elite educational program and politics and NGO’ through something called the African Youth Leadership Forum, which is run by -according to Ugandan media — David Bahati, this same legislator who introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

“It is unconscionable to pray with a group that is actively preying on innocent people in Uganda, just because of their sexual orientation,” said Truth Wins Out’ Executive Director Wayne Besen. “We call on all world leaders who care about human rights to opt out of this year’ National Prayer Breakfast. No one should break bread with a group that is breaking the bones and spirits of gay and lesbian people.”

Earlier this month, four members of Congress wrote a powerful letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to express alarm over the proposed law in Uganda.

“This egregious bill represents one of the most extreme anti-equality measures ever proposed in any country and would create a legal pretext for depriving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Ugandans of their liberty, and even their lives,” said the bipartisan letter, signed by Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc., Pictured), Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). “Particularly given the United States’ substantial contribution to Uganda through the President’ Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), we believe swift action is necessary to ensure Ugandan leaders understand this bill is wholly unacceptable and antithetical to democratic values.”

The United States embassy in Uganda also spoke out against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, calling it a major setback in the promotion of human rights.

“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.”

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that counters anti-gay misinformation, fights religious extremism exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about the lives of GLBT people.

Additional coverage: The Family’s Sen. Ensign Scandal and cover-up

In March, American anti-gay activists traveled to Uganda for a conference that pledged to “wipe out” homosexuality. Seven months later, a draconian bill has been introduced that pledges to make good on this threat. The “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009″ is so severe that it is designed to shred the spirit and suffocate the soul of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Ugandans. If it passes, Uganda will become a predator state that actively hunts down GLBT people to destroy them.

Uganda already punished gay intimacy with life in prison. But, apparently that was not harsh enough, with this bill penalizing anyone who “attempts to commit the offence” with up to seven years in jail. Additionally, a person charged will be forced to undergo an invasive medical examination to determine their HIV status. If the detainees are found to be HIV+, they may be executed.

This barbaric legislation stifles free speech by threatening anyone who is accused of “promoting” homosexuality with five to seven year prison sentences. Snitching on gay friends and family members is strongly encouraged because “failure to disclose the “offence’ within 24 hours of knowledge makes somebody liable to a fine or imprisonment of up to three years.”

Sadly, this witch-hunt has the blood stained fingerprints of leading American evangelicals. The Fellowship, (aka The Family) one of America’ most powerful and secretive fundamentalist organization’, converted Uganda’ President Yoweri Museveni (pictured top) to its anti-gay brand of Christianity, which is the “intellectual” impetus behind the anti-gay crackdown. The clandestine organization’ leader, Doug Coe, calls Museveni The Fellowship’ “key man” in Africa. Jeff Sharlet, author of “The Family”, writes of the African strongman’ conversion:

“So,” Doug Coe told us, “my friend said to the president, “why don’t you come and pray with me in America? I have a good group of friends‚Äîsenators, congressmen‚Äîwho I like to pray with, and they’d like to pray with you.’ And that president came to the Cedars (a religious retreat), and he met Jesus. And his name is Yoweri Museveni…And he is a good friend of the Family.”

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