Box Turtle Bulletin

Religious Groups Push for Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill Revival

There has been a lot of talk about the pending revival of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill (a.k.a., the “Kill the Gays” Bill) in the next month or so, or even as early as this week. This morning’s Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, reports on one important religious group in Uganda that is organizing a campaign to pressure Parliament to take up the bill. According to Daily Monitor:

L-R: Unidentified woman, American holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, International Healing Foundation's Caleb Brundidge, Exodus International boardmember Don Schmierer, Family Life Network (Uganda)'s Stephen Langa, at the time of the March 2009 anti-gay conference in Uganda.

Parents under the Family Life Network and Uganda Coalition for Moral Values (UCMV) have opened a fresh campaign to force the government abandon economic and foreign policy considerations and pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009.”We urge you to do what is right even if it is not politically correct. Remember that your first obligation and loyalty should be to the citizens of Uganda and our children who are our future,” they urged government in a statement signed by Mr Steven Langa, the executive director Family Life Network.

Mobilising under the ‘Uganda National Parents Network,’ the “Pass the BILL Now Campaign” the parents addressed journalists in Kampala yesterday and outlined their course of action, following revelations lately that Cabinet had abandoned the bill owing to international pressure from donor countries.

Langa’s Family Life Network was the organizer of the infamous March 2009 conference in Kampala which featured American anti-gay extremists Scott Lively, Exodus International boardmember (and current Treasurer) Don Schmierer, and Caleb Lee Brundidge of Richard Cohen’s International Healing Foundation. It was at Langa’s conference where Lively dropped his now-famous “Nuclear Bomb.” Langa followed that meeting with another one in which he repeated the falsehoods he learned from Lively, Schmierer and Brundidge. He also organized a press conference with a claimed Ugandan “ex-gay”, who was later found to have been paid by anti-gay extremists for his cooperation. Langa also appeared on local FM radio announcing the names of gay people in Kampala and demanding mass arrests, and he organized a march on Parliament demanding stiffer penalty against gay people.

Langa is a member of Phoenix-based Disciple Nations Alliance. According to the DNA’s web site, he heads the Uganda affiliate called Transformation Nations Alliance (TNA). The first DNA Vision conference in Uganda was held in 2000 at Stephen Langa’s Watoto Church (then known as Kampala Pentecostal Church). The second conference in 2001 was held at the same church. The DNA claims that Langa’s mission at TNA is to lead “to the restoration of God’s original plan for creation.” The DNA’s mission is very similar to the Dominionist “Seven Mountain’s Mandate,” particularly where they say:

The Disciple Nations Alliance began in 1997 as a joint initiative of Food for the Hungry International www.FH.org and the Harvest Foundation www.harvestfoundation.org to envision and equip local churches worldwide to fulfill their strategic role in the transformation of communities and nations. The Disciple Nations Alliance began by promoting a “school of thought” centered on the power of Biblical Truth for cultural transformation, the strategic role of the church in society, and the importance of wholistic, incarnational ministry.

In the latest report from Daily Monitor, Langa promises to launch a recall campaign against any member of Parliament who fails to support the bill’s reintroduction into Parliament.