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Loading ...Uganda presses on with anti-gay bill
04.06.2009 2:20pm EDT
(Kampala) The Ugandan government vowed to move forward with a bill that would toughen the country’s already harsh punishment of homosexuality.
Sex between two people of the same sex already is a criminal offense in Uganda – punishable by life imprisonment – although there are no records of any recent convictions.Now the government is prepared to expand the law, making it a criminal offense to be gay. The legislation would make any public display of being gay a crime.
International human rights and LGBT groups have called on Kampala to drop the bill and repeal the sodomy law.
Last week, about 20 gays and lesbians staged a rally in the capital denouncing the government. One woman said she was publicly stripped naked and taunted by a pastor and his congregation as they attempted to exorcise her.
On the weekend the government rejected the criticism.
“Many lies are being peddled,” Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo told a news conference. ” Such lies include foolish claims that some people are born as homosexuals. They are busy enticing Ugandans to join them. This is causing great concern among Ugandans.”
Nsaba Buturo also told reporters that the government has instructed its ambassador to the United Nations to oppose any resolution that would support homosexuality in Uganda.
“Yesterday, I spoke to Ambassador Ruhakana Rugunda and reminded him of Uganda’s position, which opposes legalization of homosexuality. It is the duty of Ugandans to be vigilant because agents of immorality are busy using all lies and deceptions to hurt our society,” he said.
Last month the Obama administration formally endorsed a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.
Uganda has a long history of homophobia.
In 2007, Uganda’s leading Muslim cleric called for gays to be rounded up and marooned on an island in Lake Victoria until they die.
Sheikh Ramathan Shaban Mubajje told reporters of his plan following a much publicized meeting with President Yoweri Museveni.
“I asked President Museveni to get us an island on Lake Victoria and we take these homosexuals and they die out there,” Mubajje said. “If they die there then we shall have no more homosexuals in the country.”
Mubajje’s remarks followed similar threats by other Islamic leaders.
Muslim Tabliqh Youth announced a plan to form an ‘Anti-Gay Squad’ to fight homosexuality in Uganda.
Sheikh Multah Bukenya, a senior cleric in the Tabliqh Organization, was quoted during prayers at Noor Mosque in Kampala as saying that his followers are “ready to act swiftly and form this squad that will wipe out all abnormal practices like homosexuality in our society.”
Anti-gay attacks are commonplace in Uganda.
A coalition of Christian and Muslim religious groups filled a downtown stadium in 2007 demanding mass arrests of gays.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission following the rally said that it had uncovered evidence that the Bush administration had funded groups in Uganda that actively promote violence and discrimination against lesbians and gay men.
Among those receiving money, according to US government records, was Uganda Muslim Tabliqh, and the Makerere University Community Church,
The church’s leader, Pastor Martin Ssempa, was a leading organizer of the anti-gay rallies in Kampala.
Ssempa and his coalition, which includes Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Evangelicals, also have threatened the safety of Ugandan LGBT rights activists by posting their names, photos and addresses on a Web site.
Uganda needs to be next on the GLBT BOYCOTT list – right next to Jamaica! These religious idiots don’t realize that they are the greatest instigators of hate in the world today. Truly pathetic people.
All US aid to Uganda should be immediatley ended.
Are you listening, Bono?
No more aid; not one US dollar should ever be sent to that country.
And I am an AIDS activist – go figure. I am also extremely pissed off at the disgusting behaviour of this culture; please do NOT ever tell me that I have to be politically correct again.
Political correctness is over – this culture and these people are sick, their religions are twisted, and I don’t give a damn about being condemned by those who may think I am ‘insensitive’. Tough shit. Uganda: go to hell.
The president should spend his time waging war against the Christian Taliban in this country FIRST, then worry about Afganistan, Pakistan, or any other stan where bigotry in the name of god is the rule of the day.
TO THE RELIGIOUS NUTS!
Make sure you read the 5th Paragraph!!!!
RELIGION IS THE ROOT PROBLEM (EVIL) OF THIS HATE!!!
Africans are only spewing the Hate brought to them by the Europeans… Anglican religion (though known to be “Accepting” in the States) But they (in Jamaica as well) are taking that [CRAP] serious!!!
So when you go to your little, sweet Church here in the States and make donations or tythings; they GIVE a Percentage of their Funds to these AFRICAN and 3rd World Churches, they THINK they are supporting stuff like feeding poor and hungry, etc. but they are ALSO fueling the flames of hatred for the LGBT Community!
If I want to feed or help cloth someone in another country I find the family for myself and send it (especially to an LGBT family) Help THEM out, not the HATERS!
If THEY “Suspect” you to be a lesbian they (your Christian family) will have guys from the community, church to come rape the lesbianism out of you….
of course if you are gay, you get the [crap] (life) beaten out of you!
Thats the “GLORY” of religion in Many countries! and Here we know what they do here with Marriage Equality.
We are the targets of a global religious war, yet so many cannot or refuse to recognize that. Maybe once we have been herded into the camps we will finally wake up.
Boycott Uganda?
Ummm. since I last checked Uganda wasn’t high on the tourist list.
Now Jamaica, They need to be knocked down a few notches and brought out of the Iron Ages, of course they are only practicing what the european slave drivers taught them.
So if you support a Religious Organization then you are supporting the beliefs that all these backward countries (and the south of USA) believes in!
Truth is the truth.
OK…I am disgusted by the idiocy of this lunatic fringe, but that being said….other than the unlucky souls that are marrooned in this uncivilized hell hole,its UGANDA!…who gives a shit! Please! Let the stupid savages kill each other off so the US can take it over as a large trash dump and we can clean up New Jersey and Ohio and all of the other big trash dump states….
Cut off any and all foreign aid to this country, just start dumping outdated guns and ammo and let the gays arm themselves!…and then outlaw being straight or part of this current government.
Pure evil. Just purely evil. Christianity and islam in the developing world are shameless, lacking morality, and the government just as much so. That our own churches herein the developed world wont likely lift a finger to correct these issues is a poor sign on the church worldwide, how far some dioceses have drifted from their “god”.
Maybe a taste of their own medicine would be in order here? I mean after all, Homophobia is often a sign of discomfort with their own deep-seated homosexuality itself, How would it be if people reported the perpetrators of this legislation after it gets into law? Let the basterds suffer the consequences. The church and mosque leaders that go along with it too.
pffft. who the heck wants to go to uganda anyway? what’s there to see except poor, stupid, idiotic, hungry people?
“Ssempa and his coalition, which includes Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Evangelicals, also have threatened the safety of Ugandan LGBT rights activists by posting their names, photos and addresses on a Web site.”
So much for Christ-like, right? This world sickens me in so many ways.
Come to think of it, maybe we should put ourselves on an island! We could make gay marriage legal (it would be the only marriage on our island), have the cleanest, nicest beaches, illegalize bigotry, and have a stable economy!
I’ve read that the origin of some of the ethnic tension in Rwanda stemmed from formalizing social distinctions which benefitted the administrative process, but set people against each other. Did the British do anything like this in Uganda? Why is there such a rigid attachment to two religions which were both relatively late imports? As I said before about Uganda, if you can push for independence, if you can come back from dictatorship and civil war, then you would seem to be capable of seeing where your interests lie versus the importance of colonial values. How is it that these imported religions have dug so deep into the people?
I want to see everyone out there, wearing hate with the circle/slashover hate. If asked what your shirt means, tell them that you don’t support hate towards anyone,or anything. That is what I’m going to do..so see you later with my hate shirt on.
lovely to see all the asinine, ignorant, piece of [crap] racists come out because they believe they have the perfect excuse to allow their bigotry to fly free. and you wonder why you can’t get the black or any other racial minority on board with your causes. you pathetic [jerks].
nice to see all the pathetic brain dead homo rednecks come out because they think they’ve got an excuse to show their bigotry. and you wonder why you have a hard time getting people of color of any sexual orientation to get on board with your initiatives. pathetic little pieces of shit.
oh and i’d rather visit uganda any day than any of the redneck meth lab trailer park trash towns you racists come from.
To s&m:
I have read the comments here and there is only one that is truly racist. Indeed, most comments have targeted religion and its affect on the people of Uganda. For you to come in here and post what you did only proves one thing. You are here to disrupt and be divisive, and you have nothing of value to contribute.