Ugandan MP Refuses To Withdraw Anti-Gay Bill

Jim Burroway

January 8th, 2010

Late last night, we noticed an item in Uganda’s largest independent newspaper reporting that the Ugandan Minister of State for Investment Aston Kajara said that the government would ask MP David Bahati to withdraw the Anti-Homosexuality Bill due to backlash from foreign investors. Now the Associated Press reports that MP David Bahati, the lawmaker who introduced the private member’s bill, will not back down:

“I stand by the bill,” Bahati said. “I will not withdraw it. We have our children in schools to protect against being recruited into (homosexuality). The process of legislating a law to protect our children against homosexuality and defending our family values must go on.”

Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo also insists that debate on the bill will take place in about three weeks, claiming that “there is no way government can withdraw that bill.” He also warns that any elected politician who opposed the legislation would be comitting “political suicide.” Parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled for 2011.

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

GreenEyedLilo

January 8th, 2010

Damn it all to hell. Thank you for the update anyway.

I’m sure the Ugandan schoolkids see as many “recruiters” as ours do every day, which is to say, none.

Tom in Lazybrook

January 8th, 2010

I think everyone is missing a big point in the news story. It mentions that the Catholic Church supports the bill without the death penalty (!).

That would mean that the Catholic Church supports throwing Gays in prison for life (!) for the ‘crime’ of being Gay.

After the Vatican was protested in December of last year after its’ vote with Iran and Syria at the UN against a French resolution simply stating that Gays should not be imprisoned for being Gay, the Vatican stated that it did not support imprisonment for Gays. Does these news reports represent a departure from that policy? Has the Church verbalized its policy in the public press in Uganda?

David C.

January 8th, 2010

“I stand by the bill,” Bahati said. “I will not withdraw it.”—David Bahati

Then the economic and humanitarian impact will be severe, or perhaps another accident will be arranged.

David

January 8th, 2010

Keep this quote handy.

Any time, every time someone in the U.S. employs the ‘recruit children’ argument, we can accurately point out that how it leads directly to attempts to institute a death penalty GLBTQ people.

We all, bloggers and readers, pundits and politicians, Gay Inc. and grassroots gays, need to make sure that Uganda becomes and remains the public relations nightmare of homophobes everywhere.

Uganda shows the world that homophobia is a call for genocide.

anteros

January 8th, 2010

Tom: if you see the christmas messages from the catholic church in uganda (posted on BTB)… watch the videos and read the archbishop’s full speech… he doesnt completely oppose the bill, but he would like to see some amendments. He expressed concern over the death penalty, imprisonment (not just life imprisonment), and punishment for those who fail to report homosexuals within 24 hours. He also quoted the bible, “…do not judge…” while maintaining, that according to the catholic catechism, homosexuality is a sin and cannot be condoned/supported by the catholic church. He also expressed gratitude towards efforts to protect Ugandan families – as though he believes that that’s the true intention of the bill. I got the sense that he’s either a closet homophobe who has a problem with decriminalizing homosexuality, regardless of the vatican’s official position… or he was trying to avoid getting himself listed as a sympathizer or promoter of homosexuality in Uganda.

anteros

January 8th, 2010

PS: the archbishop spoke against imprisonment for gays, but Ugandan media widely reported that he opposed *life imprisonment* for gays. they were so widespread, that those incorrect reports almost seemed intentionally misleading.

Tom in Lazybrook

January 9th, 2010

I saw that. It appears as if someone in the Catholic Church may be playing the Yassir Arafat game (saying one thing in the west and another on the ground in the East).

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