Comments on: Send Rachel Maddow a Message

By: Don

Don — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:37:19 +0000

To Rob Tisinai, you recommend readers contact Rachel Maddow by emailing her. I am at a loss to find her email address; I see no link to such an address in BTB’s pages. Can you provide a link?

It is unfortunate that Rachel’s address is not easily available: I would have contacted her before her interview with David Bahati. I would have pointed out to her tha Bahati speaks an untruth when he claims that “homosexuality is a sin.” This lie has been thoroughly discussed by the late historian-linguist John Boswell in his book “Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality” (1980) where he examined the original Hebrew text of the Book of Leviticus, and found the word “toevah” used to describe same-sex physical association in verse Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination.”

In his book Boswell discusses fully in Chapter 4 “The Hebrew word ‘toevah’ translated in English ‘abomination’ does not usually signify something intrinsically evil like rape or theft, but something which is ritually unclean for Jews, like eating pork…” He explains:”It is used throughout the Old Testament to designate those Jewish sins which involve ethnic contamination or idolatry and very frequently occurs as part of the stock phrase ‘toevah ha-goyim,’ ‘the uncleanness of the Gentiles’…” Read more at p.100 (op.cit.)

What this all means is David Bahati has based his Anti-Homosexuality Bill on his belief that homosexuality is a sin against God’s law. So the punishments outlined in Bahati’s Bill are not justified because homosexuality is not a crime against God’s law. In fact Lev. 18:22 is part of a code of laws (known as the Holiness Code, Chapters 17-26) inserted in Moses’ Book of Leviticus by a rabbi 1,000 years after Moses died, to control behavior of Jews!

By: Rob Tisinai

Rob Tisinai — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:25:25 +0000

Not futile at all. The point here is that even Rachel Maddow still hasn’t pointed out the full harshness of the bill. She may not be able to question Bahati about it now, but she can still get the word out in her commentary (or the next-day follow-up she does after so many of these interviews). And that’s what we really need.

By: Richard W. Fitch

Richard W. Fitch — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:20:50 +0000

Bombarding Rachel at this point is rather futile. According to another source the interview was all taped Wed. afternoon. Bahati was scheduled to fly back to Uganda this AM. Unless MSNBC sets up a feed from Kampala, there is little hope that the MP will make any further responses to Rachel.

By: Jim Burroway

Jim Burroway — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:29:27 +0000

As we have been consistently reporting on Box Turtle Bulletin, the bill has not died. Other media outlets have been careless in their reporting. This is the very same bill that was introduced October 2009, and has been sitting in Parliamentary committee since about December of last year.

There have been numerous false reports that the bill has been killed. It hasn’t been. There have also been numerous false reports that the death penalty portion has been modified or removed. It hasn’t. It’s been very frustratiing to see the mainstream media fall for these diversions.

By: beachewtoy75

beachewtoy75 — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:19:28 +0000

Any else notice how he refused to say the words, “execution” or “death penalty”?

People keep calling him things like idiot and stupid, but no…. he’s VERY smart and that’s why we should be worried.

But, to be fair, is this the exact same bill that Tisiani refers to? I thought it died months ago and this was just a new version of it.

By: JR

JR — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:56:05 +0000

I was absolutely shouting at the television last night as I watched it. I know she had limited time and he was making it very difficult to make any headway, but letting him away with that was sloppy. A quick reading of the (very simply written) bill would have made this very clear.