Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyPosts Tagged As: Anti-Homosexuality Bill
May 27th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Family “Research” Council’s National Pastor’s Briefing: Washington, D.C. The FRC’s Watchmen On the Wall project’s National Pastor’s Briefing wraps up today at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill. Today’s speakers consist mostly of pastors from around the country, although before they do, they will hear some legal advices from Kevin Theriot, Senior Counsel from the Alliance Defense Fund, with a talk titled, “Defending the Right to Engage the Culture.” One of those pastor, Maine’s Bob Emrich, has voiced support for Uganda’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. But then, that shouldn’t surprise us. The FRC themselves lobbied Congress against its resolution condemning Uganda’s “Kill the Gays Bill,” calling the lobbying effort, “Uganda Resolution, Pro-homosexual promotion.” Because, you know, not killing gay people only encourages them.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Birmingham, UK; Melbourne, FL; Moscow, Russia; Pensacola, FL; Washington, DC (Black Pride) and Waterloo, ON.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Russia Decriminalizes Homosexuality: 1993. President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree which repealed the law forbidding male homosexuality on this date,. Since 2006, Moscow gay rights advocates have attempted to commemorate the anniversary of this historic event by conducting a gay pride march in Moscow. And every year, Moscow authorities have suppressed the march, usually violently. This year the pattern remains the same: LTBT advocates have announced a gay pride march (for tomorrow this year) and Russian authorities have vowed to prevent it from happening.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Chris Colfer: 1990. If you watch Fox’s Glee, you know him as Kurt Hummel, the fashionably gay kid who is routinely bullied in school. He had auditioned for the wheelchair-bound Artie Abrams, but the show’s creators were so impressed with Colfer that they created the role of Kurt especially for him. Colfer, who is gay himself, says that he was accepted by his family but often bullied in school. You can see Colfer’s video for the “It Gets Better” project here.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
May 22nd, 2011
Uganda’s independent Sunday Monitor this morning has published an interview with MP David Bahati, sponsor of the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill, in which he reiterated that the close of the 8th Parliament was simply “pressing the pause button.” He told Monitor reporter Philippa Croome that the bill’s death penalty “is something we have moved away from,” despite the fact that the death penalty has not been removed at all. In fact, the recommendation from the Parliamentary and Legal Affairs Committee, which was given jurisdiction over the bill, recommended striking the phrase “shall suffer death” and replacing it with the phrase “shall suffer the penalty provided for aggravated defilement under Section 129 of the Penal Code Act.” Section 129 itself calls for the death penalty, which means that if the committee’s recommendations were adopted the death penalty would remain in place. It just wouldn’t be so obvious to those who don’t know what Section 129 specifies.
The death penalty however is barely scratching the surface for what the Anti-Homosexuality Bill would do, which Bahati acknowledges:
But the focus is on inducement, stopping the inducement of our children to this behaviour, and promotion- those two things are the ones that we will be focusing on.
If protecting children is the focus of the Bill, why does it require an entirely separate bill from current child protection laws?
We are not really singling out anybody. In 2007, we had an Act which stops defilement, the defilement Act, it is already there. We have the Penal Code which criminalises homosexuality in some form, but it is not specific, it’s not effective, it needs strengthening.
The Bill comes in to include other issues that have emerged over time-issues of promotion, it has never happened, it is happening now, issues of inducing children- it was never there, it was happening now.
Sunday Monitor also interviewed gay rights LGBT Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera. She is the founder and director of Freedom and Roam Uganda and winner of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders by a coalition of international human rights organizations. She called on the international community to continue to stand up for human rights in Uganda.
Every human rights violation that happens in Uganda, we need Ugandans to stand up and say enough is enough – and our allies in the international community to also stand up. At the end of the day, Uganda is not alone, we operate in a global village.
She also denounced the false charges that gays were trying to “recruit” children into homosexuality:
If I found someone trying to recruit children into homosexuality, I would even hand them in myself – he is trying to pretend that he’s protecting children of Uganda, but he’s not doing that.
Today, he thinks he is condemning Kasha, but he could be condemning his own children in future. There are very many children who are growing up and he is pretending to be protecting them, but they could turn out to be like some of us.
The issue here is not even recruitment or promotion. For two years, Bahati has been asked by everyone to produce the evidence and he has not produced it. He is just using that to get sympathy from the masses of people in Uganda who are parents – that’s the only reason he has insisted we are recruiting children. He does not have any other argument.
May 19th, 2011
In contrast to reports attributed to the BBC (at 14:20) that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill will soon be taken up by Uganda’s new Parliament, a parliamentary spokeswoman denied today that any action has been considered. When asked about the BBC report that the Ninth Parliament had inherited three bills, including the anti-gay bill, parliamentary spokewoman, Helen Kawesa said, “I don’t know where that news is coming from. No one has said anything here about it.”
Kawesa said the Ninth Parliament was just getting started, and elected Rebbecca Kadaga to the post of Speaker, the first woman to hold that position in Uganda’s history. Kawesa said that bills will not be considered during this initial period when committees are being formed and chairs of those committes are appointed. She also confirmed that no motion to re-introduce or continue bills had been made.
The BBC’s Africa Service reported earlier today that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill had been revived in Uganda’s 9th Parliament. Throckmorton got additional confirmation that the bill has not been revived from Stephen Tashobya, former chair of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee for the prior Parliament.
The situation however remains fluid, but as the BBC report initially stated (and is now confirmed by Daily Monitor) the new Parliament’s highest priority is a bill responding to the nationwide riots which have sprung up over the past month. The bill would amend the constitution to allow the government to ban public meetings and to hold people in detention for six months without bail for “economic sabotage.”
May 19th, 2011
Ugandan MP David Bahati (AP Photo/Ronald Kabuubi)
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” Bill Returns: Kampala. According to a BBC Africa Network Report, today’s opening of Uganda’s 9th Parliament has brought with it the revival of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. There had been talk of a procedure by which the new Parliament may take up unfinished business from the old Parliament. If this report is correct, then it appears that this procedure has been invoked. Stay tuned.
Civil Unions Vote: Rhode Island. The Rhode Island House is scheduled to vote on a watered-down civil unions bill today. The bill is very controversial — marriage equality supporters say it’s a second-class step, while anti-gay opponents decry any step toward recognizing gay relationships in any form. The move toward civil unions was seen by many on the both sides as an unacceptable compromise, but it cleared the House Judiciary Committee by a strong 9-3 vote.
EQCA Town Hall: San Francisco. Equality California will host a town hall meeting in San Francisco to discuss whether we should wait for the courts to restore the freedom to marry — a decision which could have a nationwide impact — or whether Californians should try to overturn Prop. 8 through a ballot measure in 2012. The town hall will take place this evening at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market St. from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Habitat for Humanity Pride Build: Montgomery Co., MD. Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County (MD) is kicking off the inaugural Pride Build. There will be a cocktail reception and fundraiser at the home of Jeffrey Slavin, Mayor of the Town of Somerset and Pride Build Steering Committee Member this evening from, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Please click here to register. There’s more information about Pride Build here.
AIDS Walks This Weekend: Buffalo, NY; Raleigh/Durham, NC.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Long Beach, CA; Nantes, France; Tours, France.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Oscar Wilde Released from Prison: 1897. This date in history ended a six-year ordeal for Oscar Wilde. In 1891, he was denounced as a homosexual by the Marquess of Queensbury. Wilde, who was involved with the marquess’ son, Alfred Douglass, sued the Marquess for libel but lost the case when evidence supported the marquess’ allegations. Because homosexuality was still considered a crime in England, that evidence led to Wilde’s arrest. His first trial resulted in a hung jury, but a second jury in 1895 sentenced him to two years of hard labor. Wilde was imprisoned in Pentonville and then Wandsworth prisons in London. The regime consisted of “hard labour, hard fare and a hard bed.” Ill with dysentery and weakened from hunger, Wilde collapsed during Chapel, bursting his right ear drum. He spent two months in the infirmary, and his health never fully recovered.
He was later transferred to Reading prison, where he wrote a 50,000 word letter to Douglass. He wasn’t allowed to send the letter, but he was permitted to take it with him when he was released. The letter, since named De Profundis was published in 1962’s Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. It reads, it part:
When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else – the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver – would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
May 18th, 2011
A reader from Uganda wrote in to say that he heard a report from BBC Network Africa’s Joshua Male saying that three bills from the 8th Parliament have been carried over to the 9th, which convenes today. Two of the three bills, according to this report, are the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and the similarly contentious Marriage and Divorce Bill. (Our reader didn’t catch the third bill.) We are still seeking confirmation. Stay tuned.
Update: I just listened to Joshua Male’s report on BBC Network Africa which is available online. His report said, in part:
The 9th Parliament has inherited three controversial bills that form part of its deliberations. They include the Anti-Homosexuality Bill which was shoved at the eleventh hour of the 8th Parliament, the Marriage and Divorce Bill which, among other things, would criminalize marital rape, widow inheritance [sic], in addition to providing for women’s property rights and rights to negotiate sex including seeking divorce on grounds of the man’s impotence or the size of their sexual organ. Another controversial bill is the one that seeks to enact more stringent laws for the media.
The report goes on to say that a new anti-rioting law will be the new Parliament’s first priority.
Update 5/18: It now appears that the BBC reporter either jumped the gun or was speaking to an unreliable source.
May 16th, 2011
Rumors are rife in Uganda now that President Yoweri Museveni is assembling a new Cabinet following the swearing in of the 9th Parliament. Sunday Monitor has what they say is Museveni’s short list of possible cabinet ministers.
When I first saw Anti-Homosexuality Bill author David Bahati’s name tapped as Ethics Minister late on Saturday, I re-read the article, and from the first two paragraphs concluded that it as something of a dream team put together by the paper’s staff. I was very dismayed to see it, because I have been very impressed with Monitor’scoverage throughout the past two years. But since I took it to be a list put together by Montor’s staff, I ignored it. Unfortunately. Because when Warren Throckmorton posted about it this afternoon, it prompted me to go back and look again. And sure enough:
We have defined the country’s needs as being economic development, geopolitical interests, social stability, environment and physical resource management, governance and integrity, and efficiency. We have also learned from reliable sources that these are names being considered by the President for appointment to the Cabinet and to junior minister positions. [Emphasis added].
What follows are two lists: the “president’s shortlist” and the Monitor’s dream list. Formatting of the two lists prevented me from noticing that there were, in fact, two lists. Bahati’s name does not appear on Monitor’s dream list, but it does appear on the one that matters: the one that reported to be the president’s list
Meanwhile, state-supported New Vision, which generally has closer ties to Museveni’s government, came out with theor own list about some possible new faces in the cabinet. One interseting name:
Tim Lwanga
The MP-elect for Kyamuswa County, Kalangala District, is also likely to bounce back on the list of the ministers.Lwanga, a Born-again Christian, is a former Minister of Ethics and Integrity. He had been dropped from the list of ministers after losing in the 2006 parliamentary elections.
Lwanga was replaced by James Nsaba Buturo, who was also defeated in the recent elections.
New Vision doesn’t say what position Lwanga would be considred for. Bahati is not on New Vision’s list. And so the rumor mill grinds along…
[This post replaces an earlier post in which I erroneously stated that Warren Thockmorton and David Badash (at the New Civil Rights Movement) “misread” Monitor’s article when, in fact, it was I who misread it. I apologize to Warren, David, and to the readers who saw that post.]
May 13th, 2011
Jim,
Politics is a funny animal and the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 could still raise its head in another form. But it does look very promising at this time that this bill may be finally dead.
And much of the credit goes to Box Turtle Bulletin, and especially to you personally.
This has been a TREMENDOUSLY time consuming effort involving a matter that surely no one here ever considered to be our bailiwick, involving connections that we could not assume we could even develop, and creating allies that were unimaginable. Going into this two years ago we never dreamed of reaching the State Department, much less having statements from the President and many governments around the world.
It has been a lot of work, but you must be feeling tremendous satisfaction. I certainly do for my much less significant role.
Congratulations, my friend and associate. You changed the world.
Timothy
A commentary
May 13th, 2011
This South African hit by Letta Mbulu was released in 1991 during the euphoric days after apartheid. While South Africans celebrated their newly-won freedoms, she sang, “There are some people who look at us as being free, but when you speak with regular folk they say it’s ‘not yet uhuru’.” The phrase “Not yet uhuru” is a mix of English and Swahili — not yet free. Similar to another phrase from Mozambique’s war for independence, “a luta continua” (the struggle continues), “not yet uhuru” reminds us that there is still much work to be done. As an email friend from Uganda reminded me a month ago, “Until equality is reality for every human being… it’s not. It’s not yet uhuru.”
For more than two years now, we have been watching in horror as events spun out of control in Uganda, events that were dangerously inflamed by American Evangelicals seeking to deport their thinly-veiled disgust (if not outright hatred) for LGBT people. From the moment we first learned about the then-pending March 2009 conference put on by three American anti-gay activists — Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, still sitting Exodus International board member (and now treasurer!) Don Schmierer, and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge; may their shameful roles never be forgotten — through the connections between the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s sponsor and the shadowy American evangelical group known as The Family, through other connections between the bill’s godfathers and the American-based College of Prayer, through a supporting Kampala rally featuring Lou Engle and open expressions of unreserved support from Andrew Wommack’s spokesman, WND’s Molotov Mitchell, and Peter Labarbera, it became clear that while homophobia runs rampant in Uganda, it is strongly supported through the active encouragement of American anti-gay extremists.
This looked like a saga without ending. I had begun compiling a list of all of the posts about Uganda and its slide into hatred, but by May of 2010 our blogging software stopped accepting updates to that page; it had gotten too big for it to handle. It was as if WordPress itself had thrown up its hands and shouted, “Enough!” But it wasn’t enough. Events continued to spin out and we kept watching and reporting. (You can follow our posts via this tag.)
And so finally we came to this moment. When I went to bed very late last night, it was already 9:00 a.m. this morning in Kampala. When I put the finishing touches on today’s Daily Agenda, I understood that the chances against the bill becoming law were somewhat in our favor, but the rapid pace with which the bill was suddenly put into play last Friday left me to wonder what forces were impelling its rapid progression in a country where nothing happens quickly. I was, frankly, despondent. Ask my partner. He’ll tell you.
This morning, the sun is very bright here in Tucson. The temperatures are going to be in the upper 90s, which is considered temperate here. The weekend looms, and the only hitch right now is that pollen is in the air and everyone’s sneezing. But that’s a minor hitch. On the other side of the world, nightfall has already descended upon a teeming city of more than two million people, and for many the work week has just ended. Restaurants and nightclubs will soon be hopping, the streets will be noisy, and Ugandans will be celebrating the weekend. Some folks will probably celebrate more than they should, but a few will celebrate with an extra dose of verve. And for some, their celebrations will be muted as they remember those who are no longer around to celebrate.
And tomorrow, a new day will begin, but it will not be much different from the day that just ended. We won’t know for certain whether this evil bill is well and truly dead until Parlaiment constitutionally expires on May 18. Even then we don’t know because there is speculation that there may be some unknown procedure allowing the 9th Parliament to take up the 8th Parliament’s unfinished business. And if it turns out it can’t, we still have the promises of one hate-filled politician who vows to introduce a new bill in the next Parliament.
But for the first time, I am just now beginning to allow myself to believe that this may be a turning point. It took me about three hours after I posted the news this morning before I could give myself permission to believe it. And even now I’ve discovered that giving myself permission and actually believing it are still two separate things. It’s not yet uhuru. A luta continua.
May 13th, 2011
The Order Paper for the Ugandan Parliament this morning has only three items on the agenda:
FRIDAY 13TH MAY 2011, ORDER PAPER
26TH SITTING OF THE 2ND MEETING OF THE 5TH SESSION OF THE 8TH PARLIAMENT OF UGANDA: FRIDAY 13TH MAY 2011 – TIME OF COMMENCEMENT 10.00 A.M.
1. PRAYERS
2. COMMUNICATION FROM THE CHAIR
3. ADJOURNMENT
KAMPALA
13TH MAY 2011
And the following announcement was subsequently posted on Uganda’s web site:
Emotional farewells as Eighth Parliament closes
The term of office for Members of Parliament elected to the Eighth Parliament of Uganda has come to an end. Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi announced to MPs, in an emmotional sitting , the end of the term of the Eighth parliament urging MPs to appreciate and embrace the multiparty political system.
“This Parliament was different from all parliaments before it.But my assessment is that people still long for the movement political system other than the multiparty system .The two systems are different and what you must know is that under multiparty system, Mps on the government side came with one manifesto that the executive is trying to implement,”he told MPs.
Speaker Ssekandi announced that the official proclamation for the end of the Eighth Parliament had already been signed and would be gazetted on May 18, the day the ninth Parliament would commence.
The middle paragraph is a bit of ruling party propaganda that can be safely ignored. The important point is that the proclamation for the end of the Parliament “had already been signed.”
Now the Associated Press confirms:
Uganda’s parliament adjourned Friday without acting on a criticized anti-gay bill that would mandate the death sentence in some cases, drawing praise from an advocacy group that said parliament’s failure to act was a “victory for all Ugandans.”
Speaker of Parliament Edward Ssekandi Kiwanuk said there is no time to take up the bill this session, which ends Wednesday, leaving the bill’s future uncertain. Kiwanuk adjourned the parliament Friday and set no date for the body to return.
…Kakoba Onyango, a member of parliament, said the anti-gay bill has taken so long to be acted on because President Yoweri Museveni did not back it and because of the criticism of human rights groups.
AFP adds a hint to the reason why Parliament abruptly adjourned:
David Bahati, the lawmaker behind the anti-gay bill, said that as the cabinet was dissolved following the inauguration of President Yoweri Museveni for a fourth term on Thursday no bills could be passed.
Warren Throckmorton points to this news item (and confirmed through a Parliament spokesperson) indicating that the hitch may have had to do with the Cabinet being dissolved in preparation for yesterday’s swearing in on President Yoweri Museveni for another term. Writes Throckmorton:
According to parliamentary spokeswoman, Helen Kawesa, Parliament is stalled on a “technicality.” She said there is no Cabinet in place because it was dissolved in preparation for the end of the 8th Parliament in advance of yesterday’s Presidential inauguration. It is unclear who raised the issue of the necessity for Cabinet to be place for business to be conducted. However the effect is that the session is winding up, with members discussing how to proceed before the end of the 8th Parliament on 18th.
Ordinarily, all unfinished bills die at the end of Parliament. There may be a procedural move which could allow the Anti-Homosexuality Bill to be carried forward to the next Parliament. It is unclear whether such a move will be made.
There have been so many twists and turns over the past two years that it’s been hard to ever really know (or believe) what the status of the bill really is. That’s why I am not given to celebrate until the 18th of May. But I am more optimistic than I ever have been before that this odious act of evil may well be finished.
UPDATE: Sexual Minority Uganda’s Frank Mugisha is considerably more confident: “Right now I would say that I am almost sure that the bill is not coming,” he told Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
May 13th, 2011
L-R: Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (1971-1979), Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni (1986-), South African Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu.
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Uganda At The Crossroads: There is no question whatsoever that Uganda stands at a historic turning point as Parliament convenes an extraordinary final session today. When Parliament suspended business on Wednesday, a day which was supposed to be the 8th Parliament’s final day, four contentious bills on the agenda remained unfinished. Women delegates walked out because of a dispute over one of the bills, depriving the House a legitimate quorum. Parliament will meet again beginning this morning at 10:00 a.m. East Africa Time (seven hours ahead of EDT, ten hours ahead of PDT). Parliament usually begins its session at 2:00 p.m.; the early start is seen as an indication that the house intends to leave as much time as possible to get through the entire agenda. Last on the agenda (as of Wednesday) is the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Possibly gone from the plan is the oft-repeated assurance that the death penalty would be dropped. That now appears unlikely. But even if dropping the death penalty were still on the table, the remainder of the bill remains so wide-reaching, so draconian, so “odious” in the words of the U.S. State Department, that anything short of killing the bill altogether would be a huge step backwards towards Uganda’s world-renowned legacy of death and destruction.
The questions that Uganda faces today are momentous. Will Uganda retreat to its blood-soaked past? Will neighbor turn against neighbor, tribe against tribe, and powerful men against innocent minorities and scapegoats as it has before? Or will the nation step away from the brink, break free from its old habits and turn toward a promise of peace?
Today, the civilized world awaits Uganda’s choice.
“Mayday for Marriage” RV Tour: The Family Research Foundation’s RV is touring the state with their message against marriage equality. Today, the hatebus stops again in the greater Rochester area — Fairport, to be exact — at noon at State Sen. Jim Alesi’s District Office (220 Packetts Landing, Fairport) FRF says they “urge concerned citizens to attend these events and remind their elected officials that base voters care deeply about this issue.” If you’re concerned, you’re invited.
Bullying Briefing: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will hold a public briefing in connection with its 2011 statutory enforcement report, Federal Enforcement of Civil Rights Laws to Protect Students Against Bullying, Violence and Harassment at The Washington Marriott at Metro Center, 775 12th St. NW, Junior Ballroom Salons 1 and 2, Washington, DC 20005. The briefing will start at 9:00 a.m. EDT and is expected to continue to 4:30 p.m. EDT. The meeting is open to the public.
The National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYAC) Closes: The economy is straining everyone’s pocket books, and non-profits are no exception. After more than eighteen years of advocacy on behalf of LGBT youth, the Washington, D.C.-based national organization is closing its doors. In the past few years, more than eighty percent of the group’s funding came from a single federal grant for HIV testing and prevention. Efforts to expand their donor base came to naught, leading to today’s closure.
AIDS Walks This Weekend: Minneapolis, MN; New York, NY; and Stockton, CA.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Brussels, Belgium; Charleston, SC; Houston TX (Black Pride); Maspalomas, Canary Islands; New Hope, PA; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
“Cambio de Sexo”: 1977. Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s death in 1975 brought a new permissiveness in Spanish film-making, and Catalonia-born director Vicente Aranda probed the limits in what was acceptable in a still-conservative society. Cambio de Sexo (“Change of Sex”), which debuted on May 13, 1977 to critical acclaim, starred Victoria Abril as José Maria, a shy, introverted teenager living in the outskirts of Barcelona. Bullied and harassed by his schoolmates, José is expelled from his school. His father tries everything to “cure” him of his effeminate mannerisms, including, in a pivotal scene, taking him to a strip club in Barcelona. But unbeknownst to his father, one of the acts in the strip club is a pre-operative transgender. The father, clueless to the situation and determined to see his son lose his virginity, insists that José goes home with the stripper. Let’s just say the entire experience is revelatory as José understands that he was actually meant to be a girl. But the movie is more than just a story of the teen’s metamorphosis into a young woman. The transgender theme served as a reflection of the larger social changes which were just beginning to overtake Spain.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Bea Arthur: 1922. After serving thirty months in the Marine Corps as one of the first members of the Women’s Reserve. Her enlistment officer wrote that she was “officious — but probably a good worker — if she had her own way!” That description would be a good description of the characters she would portray on television. After working on and off Broadway, she landed the breakout part as Maude Findlay on Norman Lear’s groundbreaking sit-com All in the Family. The Maude character was Edith Bunker’s cousin who was the polar opposite of bigoted Archie Bunker. That 1971 episode led to her own spin-off in 1972, Maude. As the theme-song said, she was “uncompromisin’, enterprisin’, anything but tranquilizing.” The series tackled women’s liberation, menopause, drug and alcohol addiction, and spousal abuse. In one memorable two-part episode which aired two months before Row v Wade, Maude decided to terminate a late-life pregnancy with an abortion. Maude ended in 1978. After a few other roles in television and the movies, she landed the role of Dorothy Zbornak in the hit series Golden Girls. Between Maude and Golden Girls, Arthur became an LGBT icon. The Advocate in 1999 asked her why she thought that was. “You play strong, honest people,” she said, “and gays buy it because it’s real and it’s slightly anti-establishment.” She was certainly real. Also she was on Broadway in Mame. You can’t forget that.
Armistead Maupin: 1944. He was born in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. He began working as a newspaper reported in Charleston, S.C. before he moved to San Francisco in 1971 to work for the Associated Press, In 1976, he released the first installment of his Tails of the City serials. first in a now-defunct Marin County newspaper and later in the San Francisco Chronicle. Those columns were re-worked into a series of books in 1978. In 2007, Maupin married his husband Christopher Turner in Vancouver. During a trip to Australia in 2011, Maupin and his husband were denied the use of a restroom at a saloon in Alice Springs where they were having lunch. The bartender told them to go across the street because their rest room was reserved for “real men.” “So we did what real men do and crossed the street to the visitor’s center where we filed a complaint,” Maupin wrote. “Impressively we received an e-mail apology from the bartender that afternoon. Fair dinkum, mate. Next time don’t [expletive] with the poofters.”
Alan Ball: 1957. Screenwriter, director, actor and producer Alan Ball was born in Atlanta George and graduated from Florida State University with a degree in theater arts. He has written two films, American Beauty (for which he won an Oscar for best original screenplay) and Towelhead. He is more familiar to television audiences for his role as creator, writer and producer of the HBO drama series Six Feet Under (for which he won an Emmy in 2002) and True Blood, a series that has been seen as a paper-thin allegory for the LGBT community. Ball has called the comparison “kind of lazy”, adding “I just hope people can remember that, because it’s a show about vampires, it’s not meant to be taken that seriously. It’s supposed to be fun.”
Ball not only has to contend with critics, but this spring he and his partner, actor Peter Macdissi, got tangled in a legal tussle with their neighbor, Quentin Tarantino, who filed a lawsuit claiming that the pair’s collection of exotic birds constantly emit “blood-curdling” and “pterodactyl-like screams” each day which have disrupted Tarantino’s work as a writer.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available). You’d be surprised how many notices I receive without these vital details. I wish I had the time to hunt them down, but I just don’t.
May 12th, 2011
MP David Bahati
Warren Throckmorton appears to have confirmed what the Human Rights Commission has warned about earlier today, that the report from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee recommends that in the Clause 3 defining “aggravated homosexuality” and which specifies that “A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death,” that the phrase “suffer death” should be replaced with “the penalty provided for aggravated defilement under Section 129 of the Penal Code Act.”
And what is that penalty for “aggravated defilement” (which, by the way, deals with child molestation, a law that is already gender neutral)? That section of the penal code specifies that anyone who “commits a felony called aggravated defilement and is, on conviction by the High Court, liable to suffer death.”
In other words, the death penalty is being replaced with — the death penalty under subterfuge.
Which means that when MP David Bahati, sponsor of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, told NPR just this very morning that the committee had recommended that the death penalty be removed, that he was lying before his god and his country.
Of course, such evil should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention.
May 12th, 2011
“No amendments, no changes, would justify the passage of this odious bill,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. “Both (President Barack Obama) and (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) publicly said it is inconsistent with universal human rights standards and obligations.”
The State Department, he said, is joining Uganda’s own human rights commissions in calling for the bill’s rejection.
“We are following this legislative process very closely,” Toner said. “Our embassy is closely monitoring the parliament’s proceedings and we also are in close contact with Uganda’s civil rights and civil society leaders, as well as members of the (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community there.”
May 12th, 2011
Human Rights Watch has issued a press release saying that they have seen the report from Uganda’s Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which held hearings on Friday and Monday on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Despite denunciations from human rights groups and the U.S. State Department, the committee’s report with its recommendations was forwarded to Parliament Speaker Edward Ssekandi on Tuesday, which allowed the bill to show up on Parliament’s agenda on Wednesday. The bill was scheduled to go through its second and third reading as the last item on the agenda. It would have been during the second reading when the committee’s report would be revealed and recommendations discussed and either adopted or rejected. Once any and all amendments have been considered, then the bill would undergo its third reading in its final form for a vote.
Despite erroneous news reports to the contrary, the bill has not been amended since its introduction in October, 2009. To understand the committee’s recommendations, it’s important to review what the bill would do in its current form. It passed, it would:
There has been much speculation about what the committee’s report recommends. HRW says that the recommendations amount to minimal tweaks, plus a whole new “crime” that wasn’t included before:
The committee proposes amendments to the October 2009 draft bill. Despite the suggestion by the bill’s author, David Bahati, that the death penalty could be deleted from the legislation, the committee recommends retaining it. The committee proposes rewording the provision to align with the current Penal Code provision on “aggravated defilement,” which is punishable by death.
Some recommendations integrate concerns raised by Ugandan and international human rights groups. The committee states that provisions criminalizing “attempted” homosexuality should be removed, rightly stating such allegations would be very difficult to prove, Human Rights Watch said. The committee also recognizes that provisions requiring anyone who knows of homosexual conduct to report to police within 24 hours would create “problems especially to professionals whose ethics include confidentiality in order to be able to carry out their functions like Doctors, Lawyers and Counselors.”
The committee also suggests removing the clauses on extra-territorial prosecution of homosexuality and on nullifying Uganda’s international human rights obligations to the extent that they contradict the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
The committee recommends the creation of an additional crime, “conduct[ing] a marriage ceremony between persons of the same sex,” punishable by three years in prison, which was not in the original draft. It also suggests deleting the crimes of “aiding and abetting homosexuality,” and “conspiracy to commit homosexuality,” but including a penalty of seven years in prison for “procuring homosexuality by threats.” The committee did not comment on the current proposed provision criminalizing the “promotion of homosexuality,” which would jeopardize the legitimate work of national and international activists and organizations working to defend and promote human rights in Uganda.
Warren Throckmorton has looked into Uganda’s constitution and Rules of Procedures to understand what is at stake when Parliament reconvenes tomorrow morning:
Apparently, President Museveni cannot directly veto the AHB. I confirmed this with two sources today and read through their Rules of Procedure and Constitution. He can send it back or refuse to assent to it (although it would be the first time he has ever done so) but he cannot directly stop it. If he refuses to assent to it, Parliament can either turn around and pass it or they can wait 30 days for it to become law. It can either pass or fail tomorrow. If it comes up and fails then it is done in present form. If it doesn’t come up tomorrow, then a MP can make a motion to continue all business forward. In addition, I heard today, but cannot confirm that if no motion is passed to continue all business, then the new incoming Speaker could direct the committees to pick up where they left off with unfinished bills from the last Parliament. We apparently could be monitoring this particular AHB until at least May 19.
May 11th, 2011
Headlines like this one in the Los Angeles Times are exasperating, especially considering we’ve spent the entire day chasing down erroneous reports from the Associated Press. So let’s get this straight once and for all: the death penalty has not yet been removed from the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
The opportunity to offer any amendments to the bill comes during the second reading in Parliament, which has not occurred yet. There are those who say the death penalty will be dropped when the measure is brought to the floor for it second reading. There are those who say that a recommendation to drop the death penalty has been included as part of the report from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. But the death penalty has not yet been dropped, nor have any other talked-about changes to the bill been implemented. Until the bill comes up for the its second reading and those amendments to the bill are actually proposed and approved, the bill remains as it has been since its introduction.
Mainstream media have been wrongly reporting this for more than a year now. Every time they’ve reported it, they have been wrong. Stop doing it, mainstream media.
May 11th, 2011
[Update: 8:00 p.m. EDT: Jacqueline Kasha Facebook status says:
The Bill kept being raised but because of time it wasnt discussed. However after all the reactions that came from MPs it has strong support.On our way out the Government whip together with another MP Odong Otto told security that we shouldnt be allowed back in parliament and that we should all go to the West.
Those statements mean that should the Bill be discussed on Friday which is the next date agreed by the house. Its very possible it will sail through. Today a Bill was discussed for the 2nd and 3rd reading and voting within 20mins, it didnt pass because of lack of quorum so meaning should the AHB reach the floor it will pass because it has a lot of support.
We need a HUGE miracle.
Jacqueline’s assessment is considerably more pessimistic than Melanie Nathan’s source. It’s very difficult to handicap this race.]
[Update: 3:10 p.m. EDT: Melanie Nathan has an update: I have received word from a source in Uganda’s Parliament that although the Bill is on the agenda for Friday, tomorrow being a national holiday for the swearing in of President Museveni, they assert that there is a very strong chance the Bill will not make it to the floor and that Parliament will be prorogued before it can be debated and voted upon. The source, stated that Cabinet members and government have been overwhelmed with e-mails, statements and complaints from all around the world. The source believes this may well factor into preference given to other Bills in the last moments of this Parliamentary Session. The source went further to state that it was made as a commitment to him from the Speaker that “there would not be time” to hear it. He did not necessarily trust the commitment.” I think it is wise not to trust that commitment.]
[Update: 1:50 p.m. EDT: Frank Mugisha told the Associated Press that today’s Parliament proceedings were interrupted by a walkout among women MP’s who were upset over an unrelated bill (Both the Marriage and Divorce Bill and the HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill have drawn fire from women’s groups. It’s unclear which bill triggered the walkout.) Parliament was then unable to continue due to a lack of quorum.]
Uganda’s Parliament has suspended business for the day without having taken up debate and a vote on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Sexual Minorities Uganda’s Frank Mugisha, who has been on hand at Parliament (and enduring insults from Parliament members as a result) just posted on Facebook that Parliament will reconvene on Friday with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill back on the agenda.
Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, has been focusing its resources on the larger ongoing turmoil over nationwide month-long riots, demonstrations, and today’s return of opposition leader Kizza Besigye from Nairobi, Kenya. He was expected to return to Entebbe today after having been treated in a Nairobi hospitals for injuries sustained at the hands of Uganda’s security forces. Ugandan security forces reportedly tried to block his return, and as of this writing it is still unclear whether he will be allowed to do so. Debate over Besigye’s return has overtaken events in Uganda’s Parliament, which may account for its sudden recess until Friday.
Warren Throckmorton also confirms that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill will be scheduled for Friday. While the 8th Parliament remains constitutionally in effect until May 18, a Parliament spokesperson told Throckmorton that Friday is the last day the current Parliament can act because swearing-in ceremonies for the 9th Parliament will begin on Monday.
Contrary to widespread mainstream media reports, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is neither dead nor dropped. This isn’t the first time mainstream media has gotten this wrong.
ADDENDUM, 5/14: It turns out that the walkout by women delegates was over the Marriage and Divorce Bill. The bill would have “it would abolish forced marriage and allow women to divorce their husbands on the basis of cruelty, among others,” according to Daily Monitor. The walkout occurred when the Attorney General said that he was not ready for the bill to be voted on.
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