Gays Persecuted in Africa: Religious Extremists to Blame

The Polemicist

by Michael House

LONDON, England—(Weekly Hubris)—1/31/11—David Kato was a gay Ugandan man. He was known as the “grandfather of the kuchas,” as gay people in Uganda call themselves. Last Wednesday afternoon, a man entered his house with a hammer and battered him to death.

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. Recently, an MP tried to introduce the death penalty for acts of gay sex. “Christian” and Islamic groups have been active in whipping up hate and prejudice against gays in Uganda and in Africa generally.

David was Advocacy Officer of the organization Sexual Minorities Uganda. He began campaigning for gay rights in 1998, when he was a lone voice in a society in which to be “out” was potentially suicidal.  A fearless and fiery campaigner, he had been jailed and subject to constant threats to his life. Last year he gave a lecture at Cambridge University entitled “A Matter of Life and Death: the Struggle for Ugandan Gay Rights.”

Last year, a Ugandan tabloid newspaper called “Rolling Stone” published a story under the headline “100 PICTURES OF UGANDA’S TOP HOMOS LEAK.” On October 2^nd it published photos of David and another man on its front page with the headline “HANG THEM.”  The sub-headlines read: “We shall recruit 100,000 innocent kids by 2012: Homos” and “Parents now face heart-breaks as homos raid schools.” That was followed up in a later edition by a banner headline “MORE HOMOS’ FACES EXPOSED,” with the identities of 17 more people exposed.

The Ugandan government, instead of prosecuting the editor for incitement to murder, did nothing. Instead, it was left to David and other human rights and gay activists to sue the paper and secure a ban on further outings of gays. Damages were awarded. The paper continues to publish. Launched last year by graduates of Mekerere University in Kampala, and with a circulation of 3,000, it has used a vicious anti-gay campaign to put itself on the map.

In 2009, a born-again so-called “Christian” MP named David Bahati, from the ruling National Resistance Movement Party, introduced into parliament a bill proposing the death penalty for:  engaging in gay sex with an under-18; or with a disabled person; or while infected with AIDS; or for being a “serial offender.” Gay sex with a consenting adult would earn a life sentence, replacing the current 14-year maximum. This charming legislation also sought to introduce prison sentences for “promoting” homosexuality (shades of the notorious Section 28 in the UK, which our “liberal Conservative” Prime Minister David Cameron supported) and for failing to report a homosexual act to the authorities within 24 hours.

Bahati said: “Here, we don’t recognize homosexuality as a right. We are after the sin, not the sinners. We love them—and we want them to repent and come back. It’s not an inborn orientation, it’s a behavior learned—and it can be unlearned. That’s why we are encouraging churches and mosques to continue rehabilitating and counseling these people.”

The climate of fear and hatred was fostered by evangelical Christian groups, including visits to the country by American preachers known for their homophobic campaigns. All members of the Inter-religious Council of Uganda have urged the government to cut diplomatic ties with countries that want Uganda to accept homosexuality. President Yoweri Museveni repeated the canard about gays’ “recruiting” children. And his Ethics and Integrity (sic) Minister James Nsabo Buturo has said that Uganda will never acknowledge homosexuality as a human right.

Homophobia is deeply engrained in Africa. It is cultural, and the flames are fanned by Christian and Islamic bigotry. Homosexuality is illegal in most African countries—in particular Arab Islamist North Africa and former British colonies such as Uganda, Kenya and Malawi, where statute law forbade “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man woman or animal.” The Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, to his credit, opposed the Bahati bill, but he has repeatedly said that homosexuality is incompatible with the word of “God.”

In Kenya, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kisumu condemned homosexuality as “un-African,” adding, “God created Adam and Eve. God did not create Adam and Steve.”

Lest we in the West become too pleased with ourselves, let us consider the case of Brenda Namigadde. She is a Ugandan lesbian who fled her country in 2002 to avoid persecution after being beaten and victimized because of her sexuality. The British immigration court affected to believe she was not a lesbian, and she was held in detention prior to forcible deportation to Uganda. She had been put on a plane at Heathrow before a judge finally issued an injunction preserving her position. Whether she is gay or not, her life would be at risk if she returned to Uganda because of the international publicity her case has generated.

In related news, two men have been charged with stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, the first prosecution of its kind in the UK. They are accused of handing out a leaflet titled “The Death Penalty?” outside the Jamia Mosque in Derby. Their names are Razwan Javed and Kabir Ahmed. I wonder whether you can guess their religion?

In the US, the anti-gay bigots tend to be the same people who want to turn women into human incubators against their will. They are “pro-life”—except that they usually favour the death penalty—but not when they are murdering abortionists.

More and more US states are passing legislation that persecutes and obstructs women who want an abortion; and 370 anti-abortion bills were introduced at the state level last year. Limiting abortion funding is the preferred tactic, used in laws passed in Arizona, South Carolina, Mississippi, Colorado and Virginia. Utah has banned self-induced abortions and Oklahoma abortions after 20 weeks. Another tactic is to create bureaucratic hoops to jump through and to induce guilt and fear in women. Kansas has introduced mandatory HIV tests. Arizona and Oklahoma established reporting requirements for minors. Nebraska law says women must be given information about the dangers and complications of abortion—an attempt to scare women away.

Most insidious and wicked of all, Missouri requires that women be informed (as if it were objective truth) that abortion “ends the life of a separate, unique, living human being.” Oklahoma requires the providers to show the “image” of their foetus to women, while three other states demand that providers offer to provide the image. Wisconsin requires a “discussion” of contraception with the provider (closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?).

There are many similar examples, both passed into law and in the pipeline.

We must hope and pray (!) that at least one of the right-wingers on the Supreme Court dies while Obama is still President, so that Roe v. Wade is protected and some of this evil state legislation is cut down.

Needless to say, the anti-abortionists, like the anti-gays, are driven by religion