December 24th, 2009
Box Turtle Bulletin has learned through exclusive video provided by a BTB reader that the Secretary General of Uganda’s main opposition party has announced that the party would oppose the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill that is now before Parliament.
In an announcement carried by Uganda’s independent Record TV, Secretary General Chris Opoka of the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) denounced the bill as discriminatory, saying “the state has no business with what people do in their bedrooms.”:
What two consenting adults do, the state has no business… absolutely! It is discriminatory. Me, I don’t understand this idea of “African values.” Was Muwanga not a homosexual, the Kabaka 1? Eh? Was he not a homosexual? No! Let’s stop this nonsense! It is natural! Many children, many young boys in school, as they are growing to adults, have this tendency of attraction.
This is very significant. Prior to this announcement, it had been widely assumed that the bill would pass Parliament with a near-unanimous vote. Any opposition to this bill had been seen as political suicide.
The following video is a cell-phone recording of the late night news program Record News, broadcast on Record TV on December 23, 2009.
Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.
Transcript of the Record News Broadcast.
…of parliament, yet leaving out more important bills to be discussed like the land bill, among others. The remarks were made by the party’s Secretary General, Chris Opoka, while addressing journalists at UPC headquarters in Kampala, as Simon/Samuel(?) Mwesigwa reports:
Opoka says that the proposed death penalty towards the offenders undermines individual rights to make decisions, regardless of culture, norms and religious beliefs in the country. As such he has called upon government to revise the provisions of the bill, and leave the issues of culture to the cultural leaders in Uganda.
“…people, with life imprisonment, even to face death, so… the homosexual who molests a young child… is worse than a heterosexual who molests a young child, is that so? So this, the punishment for similar offenses for pedophiles at least is discriminatory. But secondly, this I said before, the state has no business with what people do in their bedrooms. What two consenting adults do, the state has no business… absolutely! It is discriminatory. Me, I don’t understand this idea of “African values”, …was Muwanga not a homosexual, the Kabaka 1? Eh? Was he not a homosexual? No! Let’s stop this nonsense! It is natural! Many children, many young boys in school, as they are growing to adults, have this tendency of attraction…”
The Anti-Homosexual (sic) Bill drafted by David Bahati, also a member of Parliament for Ndorwa County West, was recently presented to Parliament and is still under discussion for approval. Reporting for Record News, I’m Henry Mwesigwa and Justin Nakitende(?) in Kampala.
Latest Posts
Featured Reports
In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.
When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.
In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
Priya Lynn
December 24th, 2009
Hurray for Chris Opoka! He sounds almost exactly like Pierre Trudeau when he came out against the Canadian law against criminalizing same sex sex and said “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.”.
Priya Lynn
December 24th, 2009
Ooops, a typo there, that should say:
He sounds almost exactly like Pierre Trudeau when he came out against the Canadian law criminalizing same sex sex and said “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.â€.
Priya Lynn
December 24th, 2009
I admire the bravery of these people in speaking against this law in this climate of fear and vigilantiism.
gayuganda
December 24th, 2009
Very interesting indeed.
The ruling party, NRM has more than a 2/3rds majority in parliament. Which the president controls.
And, UPC’s Benson Obua-Ogwal is the bill’s co-sponsor, though I think it was a case of let there be two names for ‘bipartisanship’
Maybe politicians will just be politicians, and, they sense an opportunity of ingratiating themselves with the ‘donors’… It is a very interesting development indeed!
Me, I just want one thing, the bill dropped…. Call me selfish. ha!
David
December 24th, 2009
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni will intervene to soften tough anti-gay legislation in a bid to address the concerns of the East African country’s Western partners who have expressed strong opposition to it, his top aide said on Thursday.
“We should not have an extreme position. The president will harmonise the two sides and address the concerns of the Europeans and our other development partners. We should put into consideration the position and concerns of our partners,” Musevenis spokesperson, Joseph Tamale Mirundi told the German Press Agency, dpa.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=nw20091224122227636C977885
Priya Lynn
December 24th, 2009
Earlier he had promised to veto it – that doesn’t sound good.
Leave A Comment