Box Turtle Bulletin

Sweden responds to Uganda’s proposed “Kill Gays” bill

Sweden may cut back their development assistance to Uganda if the draconian new anti-homosexuality bill passes.

From Radio Sweden

Speaking to Swedish Radio news, development minister Gunilla Carlsson says that she thinks the new law is “appalling”.

“I’m doubly disappointed”, she says, “partly because Uganda is a country with which we have had long-term relations and where I thought and hoped we had started to share common values and understanding. The law itself is wretched, but it’s also offensive to see how the Ugandans choose to look at how we see things, and the kind of reception we get when we bring up these issues”

In all, Sweden’s response puts about 50 million dollars at risk.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

UK PM Gordon Brown Denounces Uganda’s “Kill Gays” Bill

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown reportedly met with Uganda President Yoweri Museveni at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) taking place this weekend at Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. According to The Telegraph, Brown met one-on-one with Museveni and denounced the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act which is now before Uganda’s Parliament. No details of the conversation were provided, but an unnamed Downing Street source said in a typically understated British fashion, “The Prime Minister did raise it and you can take it that he was not supportive of the idea.”

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Canada PM To Denounce Uganda’s “Kill Gays” Bill

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on Thursday that he will raise the issue of Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which began yesterday. Transport Minister John Baird made the announcement before Parliament on Thursday:

Transport Minister John Baird made the announcement today in Question Period in answer to demands by NDP MP Bill Siksay that the Prime Minister meet “face-to-face” with the Ugandan leader “to help stop this bill.”

“The current legislation before Parliament in Uganda is vile, it\’s abhorrent. It\’s offensive. It offends Canadian values. It offends decency. We strongly condemn that and the Prime Minister will make that strong condemnation as well,” Mr. Baird said.

The Conservative Prime Minister is just one more important voice denouncing Uganda’s proposal to institute the death sentence for LGBT people. On Tuesday, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis demanded that discussions of Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act be placed on the agenda.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

United Church of Canada Urges PM To Bring Up Uganda’s “Kill Gays” Bill at Comonwealth Meeting

The United Church of Canada, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, urging the leader to raise the issue of Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting taking place in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. In the letter sent Thursday, acting Executive Minister Patti Talbot wrote:

[I]t is with shock and dismay that we have learned that the Ugandan Parliament is in the process of bringing to law an Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would lead to the criminalization of homosexuality as well as the restriction of free speech and organization in support of the legitimate civil rights of its population.

…Canada\’s own Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrines the rights of all people regardless of their sexual orientation. As Canadians then, we are responsible for becoming more aware of discrimination against homosexual persons, taking action to ensure that they enjoy their full civil and human rights in society, working to end all forms of discrimination against them, and personally supporting the victims of such discrimination.

In the next few days there is an opportune moment at the summit of Commonwealth leaders for Canada to show leadership in advocating for the protection of the human rights of all people, especially those who are most marginalized, such as gay, lesbian and bisexual people in Uganda. At this summit we urge you to raise these issues and speak firmly against this regressive proposed legislation by the Parliament of Uganda.

The United Church of Canada was formed in 1925 as the result of the merger of Canada’s Presbyterian, Methodist and various congregational churches. The UCoC joins the Anglican Church of Canada in calling on the Canadian government to publicly denounce the bill.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

PEPFAR Coordinator: Don’t Link Uganda Funding To Anti-Homosexuality Act

Newsweek’s Katie Paul spoke to Eric Goosby, chief coordinator for the President’s emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) about Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act instituting the death penalty against gays under certain circumstances. The bill would also outlaw all advocacy and outreach toward and on behalf of the LGBT community, making HIV/AIDS prevention work impossible. Linking to some of BTB’s reporting, Paul asks Goosby about the administrations plans for PEPFAR in Uganda should the legislation go forward:

I’m very concerned about any decision that any country—including our own—would make to target a group that’s in the population, and that’s always been in the population, by excluding them from a service or passes legislation that criminalizes their behavior. Every time you do that, you push the behavior underground. It never works. Rather than minimizing the spread of the virus, it actually amplifies it.

The U.S. policy is trying to work with governments to say exactly that. I think I would do more harm than good by connecting our resources to respond to the epidemic to making them dependent on a behavior that they’re not willing to engage in on their own. 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.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Hate Crimes Based On Sexual Orientation Still Most Violent

One trend that we can legitimately identify in the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics for 2008 is this: hate crime offenses based on sexual orientation continue to be the most physically violent. When you look at physically violent hate crimes against persons (murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, and aggravated and simple assault) as a percentage of all hate crimes for each protected category, those who are singled out based on sexual orientation are really taking it on the chin:

Sexual Orientation Hate Crimes: Did They Really Go Up?

The FBI has issued its annual Hate Crimes Statistics for 2008, and there’s a lot of talk about how much the statistics for hate crimes based on sexual orientation went up. But before we jump on that bandwagon, Andrew Sullivan points us to an important caution by Mark Thompson who sees what he considers an “annual misuse of hate crime statistics“:

Every year around this time, the FBI publishes its statutorily-mandated annual report on hate crime statistics.  Like clockwork, every year that report gets misused no matter what the FBI does to discourage that misuse (previous examples of misuse here).  This year is no exception, as several prominent liberal sites have picked up on the lede that this year\’s report shows a “sharp increase” in anti-gay hate crime while also noting that race-based hate crimes barely decreased at all.

The problem is that these particular FBI statistics are virtually useless for evaluating year-to-year trends – always have been, always will be.  This year, the FBI itself went out of its way to warn against such readings, stating “our Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program doesn\’t report trends in hate crime stats—yearly increases or decreases often occur because the number of agencies who report to us varies from year to year.”

Reporting hate crimes to the FBI is voluntary.  Local law enforcement agencies aren’t required to participate in the FBI’s hate crime statistics gathering program, nor do they receive any federal funds when they do so. This means that year t0 year, different segments of the total U.S. population are represented in the hate crime statistics depending on whether the local law enforcement agency chooses to participate.

In 2003, 11,909 law enforcement agencies covering 82.3% of the population participated in the program. In 2008, that number reached a record high of 13,690 agencies covering 88.6% of the population. By the way, that’s up from 13,241 last year, in which 86.3% of the population was covered. Meanwhile, the U.S. added an estimated 2.4 million people to the overall population according the the U.S. Census Bureau.

All of that together is a complicated way of noting that the population covered by the 2008 hate crimes statistics is 3.4% larger than that covered by the 2007 statistics. This means that even if hate crimes went up 3.4% over last year, it means that the rate of hate crimes is effectively unchanged.

So having said all that, let’s look at the hate crimes statistics themselves. The FBI collects three sets of hate crime statistics: hate crime incidents, offenses, and victims. According to the FBI’s definition, an incident represents a single occurrence of one or more hate crime offenses (each offense being an assault, a robbery, an act of vandalism, etc.) against one or more victims. The statistics for 2008 look like this (2007 data in parentheses):

From a raw numerical standpoint, hate crimes went up broadly in most categories (race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.)  and by most measures (incidents, offenses and victims). So now it’s time to factor in the growth of reporting agencies as well as the growth of the overall U.S. population. And to try to discern longer-term trends, let’s go back to 2000 and see what it all looks like. The following graphs show what the hate crimes data looks like over the past decade as a proportion to the size of the population covered in those respective years.

The most notable trend can be seen in reported hate crimes based on race., which have been decreasing dropping through most of the decade. Also notable is the slow but inconsistently lowering of hate crimes based on ethnicity following a huge spike in 2001, caused by a large surge in crimes against people of Middle Eastern backgrounds following 9/11. (Anti-Islamic sentiment also contributed to a spike in religious-based hate crimes the same year.)

But for hate crimes based on sexual orientation, the message appears mixed. One might be tempted to conclude that there has been a slight overall rise in hate crimes based on sexual orientation over the past three years. But given the many issues which contribute to inaccuracies in reporting of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, it is virtually impossible to categorically announce such a trend, as many other web sites have done. The kind of changes that we’re seeing year-to-year amount to statistical noise are clouded by many factors including:

• Changes in law enforcement agencies who choose to volunteer in the voluntary reporting program. Each year, some drop out as others are added, all with different demographics in their populations).
• Differences in how investigators are trained to investigate hate crime bias, as well as inconsistencies in how prosecutors pursue hate crime enhancements.
• Differences in state law, where many states do not cover sexual orientation in their hate crime statutes, giving local investigators and prosecutors little incentive to even investigate and report bias motivation where sexual orientation is concerned. We delved into that in greater detail in 2006 here.
• Many local jurisdictions are increasingly sensitive to hate crime bias based on sexual orientation. Increases in reports of hate crimes based on sexual orientation may merely reflect better reporting of hate crimes, and not a rise in the actual number or rate of such crimes.

And with this years’ passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, observable trends over the next several years will be massively complicated as aspects of the law dealing with local assistance and reporting go into effect. With all these factors in play, it would take a considerable swing to be able to discern a real trend in hate crimes based on sexual orientation. That large swing isn’t there, and any attempt to divine a trend based on sexual orientation is unjustified. Mark Thompson is right. There just isn’t quite enough there there.

But there is one disturbing trend that you can legitimately draw from the latest hate crime statistics: hate crimes based on sexual orientation are noticeably more violent than crimes motivated by other biases.

Gay hockey shocker!!

There is shocking news in the hockey world this week. A young man who is the son of a team’s general manager, the brother of another team’s scout, and the student manager of his college’s hockey team came out. That wasn’t the shocker.

What has been surprising to me is that no one involved seems to have reacted negatively.

His team responds with acceptance and by trying to cut back on gay slurs in the locker room. His coaches praise him for his contributions. And his father, Mr. Testosterone, has him fly into town so they can go to gay pride together.

But it isn’t just those that know Brendan Burke who are supportive. The news reporters hoping for a Big Controversy were unable to find one. (Globe) The most they could come up with was imagined unspoken uncomfortability.

All of the players said it would not be a problem in today’s NHL for someone on their team to publicly declare his sexual orientation. They said they did not think a gay player would face any harassment from his teammates, although the topic was not one they were willing to discuss for long.

In the Hockey News, a columnist predicts that soon this will be no big deal at all.

In hockey terms, it will be very soon when openly gay students begin to try out for and make high school teams. Their buddies will have known and become accustomed to that fact and it will be no big deal. If openly gay players are good enough, they\’ll move on to major junior, college, the American League and the NHL.

All of which is wonderful. And surprising.

But what does it mean?

Well, it certainly isn’t the case that hockey, or any other major sport, is now a welcome space for gay athletes. Nor are locker rooms safe from gay slurs or homophobic banter.

But the significant change that this story illustrates is that overt public homophobia is now no longer seen as acceptable – even in the most masculine of communities.

Gay-hostile comments will continue to trumpet themselves through locker rooms due to bigotry, religion, stereotypes, or ignorance, but the idea of homophobia is no longer welcome. Gay people may still be subjected to abuse, but as with racism or religion-based discrimination, it is no longer socially acceptable to openly and publicly embrace homophobia, even in the hockey locker room.

At times it can be frustrating waiting for our fellow citizens to stop making up excuses for discrimination and unequal rights. It can seem disheartening to watch yet another state give in to its fears and biases. But stories like this remind us that the war is over and we have won.

Yes we have battles to fight, and we may frequently lose, but our biggest obstacle has been surpassed. We have convinced our neighbors that it is a shameful thing to mistreat gay people.

And that is a shocking thing indeed.

Quinnipiac Poll: NJ Voters don’t want marriage equality this week

Polls over marriage equality in New Jersey are hovering around even.

A Rutgers-Eagleton poll conducted between Nov. 6 and 10, found 46 percent of adult residents want to extend the right to gay couples while 42 percent oppose it. Still undecided were 12 percent of respondents.

A Quinnipaic poll taken November 17 through 22 found a plurality in opposition to equality:

By a slim 49 – 46 percent margin, New Jersey voters oppose a law that would allow same-sex couples to marry, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
…
In this latest poll, same-sex marriage wins 60 – 34 percent support among Democrats and a narrow 49 – 45 percent support among independent voters, while Republicans oppose the measure 69 – 25 percent.

Women support same-sex marriage 53 – 41 percent, while men oppose it 57 – 38 percent. White voters split 49 – 47 percent, while black voters oppose the measure 61 – 28 percent.

While these contradicting polling numbers don’t provide incontrovertible support for any decisions, I think we can count on the negative one to be used as justification for the leadership in New Jersey to renege on promises and to shove marriage equality at least four years into the future. I very much doubt that they will act to bring about marriage equality in this lame duck session.

I have a growing contempt for the leadership in New Jersey. But it pales in comparison to the contempt they show for the principle of equality.

Yet I can be dissuaded. Prove me wrong, guys.

Follow The Money: The American Connection to Uganda’s Death Sentence For Gays

Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, where he laid out yesterday for the first time the pipeline of money and support for those behind the Anti-Homosexuality Act which is now before Uganda’s Parliament.

Before investigating that particular connection, a bit of background on the American secretive group, The Family, is in order. The Family (sometimes known as The Fellowship) was founded in 1935 by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant preacher who said that God came to him one night and said that Christianity has been focusing on the wrong people: the poor and the suffering. According to Vereide, God commanded him to become a missionary to the rich and powerful, so that they could unleash blessings to the rest of society through the exercise of theocratic principles that would, in effect, “trickle down” to the masses.

Immediately, Vereide set out to recruit a group of “Key Men” in Seattle, where his new theology was put to the test. Key Men are said to be those who are identified as having been chosen by God to be in positions of power and influence — that they are in those positions not because of their own hard work or fortune, but because they were chosen by God to be there. And in their positions, they are to exercise their power and influence in order to bring out a New Order throughout the world. To give you an idea of some of the influence The Family has in American politics today, Jeff Sharlet told Terry Gross:

And in particular – Joe Pitts has been in the news because of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment – was one of the guys who really helped to bring abortion to the forefront to the group, starting in the late ’70s, and that’s become a concern of a lot of members. And, as you expand outwards over the last couple decades, and you look at the concerns of politicians like Senator Sam Brownback, Senator Jim Inhofe, Senator Tom Coburn, all these guys who are very involved members — you see homosexuality, you see all the culture-war issues taking a place alongside biblical capitalism and this foreign affairs expansionism, and, in fact, merging in The Family’s view into one sort of united world view.

Other key members of The Family that has made news lately are Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (R). But it’s not just Republicans. The Family also has key players in the Democratic Party as well, including Reps. Mike McIntyre (D-NC), Heath Shuler (D-NC) and Stupak. (D-MI). Senator Mark Pryor (D-AK) told Sharlet that Jesus didn’t come to take sides, but to take over.

Now on to the Ugandan connection. In his book, Sharlet identifies Uganda President Yoweri Museveni as “The Family’s man in Africa,” who came into The Family when he rose to power in 1986 following a civil war, and he has been a key player in Africa on behalf of The Family ever since.

But the connection between The Family and the currently proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act doesn’t end with that relationship. It goes much deeper. Here is the key part of Sharlet’s interview yesterday, detailing for the first time the specific role that The Family is playing in the proposal to add the death sentence for LGBT people under certain circumstances and to bring an end to all public advocacy on behalf of LGBT citizens in that country:

GROSS: This legislation has just been proposed. It hasn’t been signed into law. So it’s not in effect and it might never be in effect. But it’s on the table. It’s before parliament. So is there a direct connection between The Family and this proposed Anti-Homosexual Legislation in Uganda?

Mr. SHARLET: Well, the legislator that introduces the bill, a guy named David Bahati, is a member of The Family. He appears to be a core member of The Family. He works, he organizes their Uganda National Prayer Breakfast and oversees a African sort of student leadership program designed to create future leaders for Africa, into which The Family has poured millions of dollars working through a very convoluted chain of linkages passing the money over to Uganda.

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 legislation by following the money?

Mr. SHARLET: Yes, it’s – 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’s not so invisible anymore. So that’s how working with some research colleagues we discovered that David Bahati, the man behind this legislation, is really deeply, deeply involved in The Family’s work in Uganda, that the ethics minister of Uganda, Museveni’s kind of right hand man, a guy named Nsaba Buturo, is also helping to organize The Family’s National Prayer Breakfast. And here’s a guy who has been the main force for this Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda’s executive office and has been very vocal about what he’s 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.

Mr. SHARLET: Looking at the, The Family’s 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’s through something called the African Youth Leadership Forum, which is run by -according to Ugandan media – which is run by David Bahati, this same legislator who introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

Those behind this bill claim that it is necessary because, they charge, wealthy foreign homosexuals are pouring money into the country to turn everyone gay. But as is typical in cases like this, these people are denouncing ghosts which are reflections of their own reality. It is, in fact, wealth, powerful and influential Americans at all levels who are making this literal death sentence possible.

The entire interview is an eye-opener, and provides an excellent introductory view of The Family. Sharlet’s book is required reading for every American who cares about the future of not just this country but the entire world.

Click here to see BTB\’s complete coverage of recent anti-gay developments in Uganda.

Thanksgiving 2009

We wish all of our readers a very happy and meaningful Thanksgiving. Let’s each of us take a moment over this holiday to reflect on the many things for which we can be grateful and to express our gratitude.

Atlanta sued for Eagle raid

On September 10, Atlanta police stormed the Eagle, a gay bar, treating all patrons like criminals, disregarding their civil rights, and subjecting them to homophobic language. They seemed to presume that illegal sex and drugs would be found which would justify this extreme action on their part.

There was no sex. Although patrons were individually searched (without cause or warrant) not a single illegal substance was found. And though police ran a check on each person, not even a warrant for an outstanding jaywalking ticket was identified.

So since this was just begging for a lawsuit, Lambda Legal has obliged. (Windy City Times)

In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia today, Lambda Legal and co-counsel filed a lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, the Chief of Police and forty-eight individual officers of the Atlanta Police Department on behalf of nineteen individuals who, on September 10 at the Atlanta Eagle gay bar, were forcibly searched and detained.

“The illegal activity going on in the Atlanta Eagle that night was committed by the APD,” said Greg Nevins, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Southern Regional Office based in Atlanta. “If it is APD procedure for elderly men and wounded veterans to be thrown to the floor and harassed simply for being in a bar having a drink after work, then the APD should change its procedures.”

No doubt the police will issue a report in which they find themselves faultless, within procedure, and without blame.

Ask Amy faults gay man for objection to discrimination

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson) is the advice columnist that succeeded Ann Landers at the Chicago Tribune. But sadly she is far less astute when it comes to gay issues than Ann.

Today she gave miserable advice to a bride who was indignant that her gay brother-in-law-to-be was unwilling to celebrate an institution in which he was banned from participation.

The column, along with an email I sent to Amy, after the jump.

Anti-gay Lutheran pastor heads his own church-split

In August of this year, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America took strongly affirmative stances in welcoming and supporting gay Christians, including allowing gay and lesbian ministers in lifelong monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA pastors.

Immediately, conservatives encouraged pastors and congregations to break from the ELCA and to join together in their own new denomination united by their rejection of gay men and women. And, indeed, the ELCA has lost many churches since their decision.

Among the many tales of disassociation comes this one from Little Falls, Minnesota, in which the church did not vote to leave the ELCA. What happened next is worth notice, even if Lillian Kwon spun the story absurdly. (Christian Post)

The Little Falls church defeated a motion to withdraw from the ELCA by a vote of 160-96. It also voted 95-73 not to affiliate with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, which allows gay clergy as long as they are celibate.

So those who lost the vote did what they do in many such situations. They split from the congregation to start their own church.

Church splits are hardly rare. But those who know the etiquette of pastoral service will see the problem with the following:

Bjorge is currently leading a group of people who left First Lutheran to start their own church, Faith Lutheran. He was called by the group to serve as their pastor.

So the pastor, Rev. Nate Bjorge, did not leave to seek a position with a congregation in another community that better suited his theology. Instead, he is staying in town to run a rival church (most likely created at his instigation) to the one that did not vote in accordance to his ultimatum. He is behaving punitively and in the most petty manner possible.

There is no law or – due to his separation – even denominational force to stop Bjorge. He’s entitled to try and be as destructive as possible to the church whom he previously had pledged his servitude.

But Nate Bjorge’s behavior has made his character perfectly clear. Rev. Nate Bjorge is just plain tacky.

National Geographic discusses possible bases for orientation

Sexual orientation is genetic… but not fully genetic.

Each person has about a 4-6% chance of being same-sex attracted. If, however, one has a twin brother that’s gay, the odds increase to about 12%. Make it an identical twin and you have a 50/50 chance that you too will be gay.

Anti-gay activists irrationally declare that this proves that “there is no gay gene.” In a sense they are correct, if orientation were entirely determined by purely genetic composition, then identical twins (who have the same genes) would always have the same orientation.

But the increase in odd with the increase in genetic similarity does show that genes play a part, and a big part. Which leaves the question, how does one twin end up gay and the other straight? The answer may be in how epigenetics triggers genes and can cause identical genes to respond differently.

In the following National Geographic video, the narrator discusses what might cause identical twins to have non-identical orientation.

(hat tip Queerty)