Box Turtle Bulletin

Another Uganda Documentary In the Works

French filmmaker Dominique Mesminsent has completed this trailer for an upcoming documentary he’s working on. The people speaking are unidentified, but one of the speakers appears to be pastor Julius Oyet, who has emerged as a close confidant to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s sponsor MP David Bahati. Oyet was in the visitor’s gallery and recognized by the Speaker when the bill was introduced into Parliament last October. This video captures Oyet defending the death penalty for gay people.

Oyet was a key speaker at Lou Engle’s TheCall rally last May. Oyet is also the head of the Uganda division of the College of Prayer International. MP David Bahati, who introduced the Anti-Homosexualty Act into Parliament, and MP Benson Obua-Ogwa, identified as one of the bill’s cosponsors, are core members of the College of Prayer International’s Uganda branch. They were appointed as two of eight MP’s to serve on the Christian “servant leadership team” in Parliament for three years.

Will Uganda’s Parliament Take Up The Anti-Homosexuality Bill?

As I noted earlier, Alexis Okeowo at Vanity Fair reported:

The (Anti-Homosexuality) bill’s most controversial elements—those criminalizing sexual practices or an H.I.V./AIDS diagnosis—are being scrapped to deflect the attention of critics so that the rest of the bill can pass. Parliament, which opened in early June, will be discussing the measure this week.

And as I’ve repeatedly cautioned, there is absolutely no evidence that the bill itself has been modified in any way. A Cabinet report suggested several changes, but there has been no reports that those changes have actually been made to the draft legislation itself. At last report, the bill was still languishing in the Presidential Affairs Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Warren Throckmorton doubts that Uganda’s Parliament is preparing to take up the measure, pointing to an agenda for the final session that was published on the Parliament’s web site. That agenda omits any mention of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

So where does the bill stand? Right now it’s anybody’s guess. Parliament’s notice of its final agenda states that “Parliament will, as it is mandated, continue to debate other issues which will be raised on the floor of the House.” This means that Parliament isn’t precluded from raising the issue at a moment’s notice. The published agenda also doesn’t alleviate concerns that portions of the bill may be pushed through in a piecemeal fashion, perhaps as amendments to other pieces of legislation. I don’t see any scheduled bills listed in the final agenda which might serve as a related vehicle for passing elements of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Our own Congress has quite the habit of attaching completely unrelated amendments to proposed legislation. I don’t know if Uganda’s Parliamentary rules allow for similar practices or not. We’ll just have to watch things very closely.

Vanity Fair: Uganda Parliament To Discuss Anti-Gay Bill This Week

Alexis Okeowo at Vanity Fair discloses:

Though widespread international criticism, especially from the United States, derailed the bill in its original form and forced Uganda to drop its death-penalty provision, parliament is set to discreetly pass amendments that would prevent all residents and local and international non-profit organizations from “promoting,” advocating, or associating any of their activities with homosexuality.

The punishment would effectively end all health and sexuality programs geared towards gays and lesbians, allow the government to round up and punish activists at will, and make it essentially illegal for gays to exist.

“I don’t think it’s going to be withdrawn, I don’t think it’s going to stay on the shelves, I think it’s going to pass,” [LGBT Advocate Frank] Mugisha tells me bluntly and calmly as he sips from his soda at an open-air bar in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. “We know now that they’re working on something new—they want to water the bill down and raise it again in a new form.” The bill’s most controversial elements—those criminalizing sexual practices or an H.I.V./AIDS diagnosis—are being scrapped to deflect the attention of critics so that the rest of the bill can pass. Parliament, which opened in early June, will be discussing the measure this week.

This appears to confirm earlier reports suggesting that Uganda’s political leaders will try to pass portions of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill quietly and in piecemeal form so as to escape notice from critics. One report indicated that the Cabinet subcommittee tasked with examining the bill observed that Clause 13, the section outlawing “promotion of homosexuality” had “some merit.” It is this provision that health care workers point to as potentially criminalizing providing health services to LGBT people.

The fact that Parliament is expected to take up the measure again this week suggests that, despite the Cabinet’s recommendations, the bill has experienced a new lease on life. Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, recently wrote that the bill’s sponsor, David Bahati, along with his assistant, Pastor Julius Oyet, were “ecstatic at what they perceived as [American pastor Lou] Engle’s strong support of the bill.” Their ecstasy was stoked by Engle’s rally in Kampala held on May 2. Engle is on record as supporting criminalization of homosexuality, along with measures “to not allow it to be legalized, so to speak, so then it just spreads through the legal system of the nation.”

Lou Engle’s Uganda Sermon Endorses Country’s “Stand for Righteousness”

TheCall’s Lou Engle has been trying to have it both ways in addressing questions of whether he supports Uganda’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. These questions were especially pertinent when it was announced that Engle would be putting on one of his TheCall rallies in Kampala last May. Engle issued a statement denying that he was going there to promote the bill.

We then learned through multiple sources that he had, in fact, promoted the bill at the rally. He was surrounded on stage with key supporters of the bill: Pastor Julius Oyet; the bill’s sponsor, MB David Bahati; and Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo. Engle later issued another statement saying he regretted promoting the bill at the rally, but in contradiction to eyewitness accounts, Engle protested that the bill’s promotion took place after he left.

Current TV’s Vanguard reporter Mariana van Zeller’s outstanding documentary, “Missionaries of Hate,” explored the relationship between American Evangelicals and the rising anti-gay campaigns that have been taking place in Uganda over the past year. Engle’s TheCall Uganda appeared briefly in that documentary. Today, Mariana posted an extended clip of what Engle said at that rally.

And I went through a personal wrestling in my own heart whether we should come here and join you. We know that Uganda has been under tremendous pressure in the church. We felt that same pressure. But I felt like the call was to come and join with the church in Uganda to encourage you, that in the nation you are showing courage to take a stand for righteousness in the earth. [Applause]

Jesus is a merciful savior today for everyone trapped in sin. But he is also the architect of society and the great governor of the universe. Establish marriage between a man and a woman from the beginning so that society would be preserved and read right and it would be for the well-being of the children.

And so we’ve come here to join you to pray that your government would have wisdom to uphold righteousness in this land. We are restraining, trying to restrain an agenda that’s going to hurt the nation and hurt families. Right now that homosexual agenda is sweeping into our education system, and parents are losing their rights over the education of their children. I believe there’s only one hope. Help us God! Help us! But I believe Uganda has suddenly become ground zero, not because they asked for it, but God brought you to make a statement and a stand for righteousness.

Keep in mind, Engle said this right after Oyet took the stage to call for the bill’s passage, and Engle was immediately followed by Buturo, who also called on the Parliament to pass the bill. It’s no surprise that Oyet and Bahati left the rally ecstatic in the belief that they had Engle’s full support. I don’t see how anybody watching could have walked away from the rally with any other conclusion. Engle fully supported the bill, and that his support was so strong that he he felt that “the call was to come and join with the church in Uganda to encourage you.”

And now we have Engle’s more recent statement saying he supports criminalization. The only thing he criticize now is the death penalty. But even there, he believes that the death penalty is biblically sound. That’s not exactly a rousing denunciation. Not nearly as rousing as the full-bore, no-exceptions support he gave to the people of Uganda.

Uganda’s latest American kill-the-gays bill supporter is now in St. Louis, where he has been speaking nightly at the Gateway House of Prayer on S. Lindbergh Blvd. in the western St. Louis suburb of Rock Hill. He will be speaking every night through July 12.

Lou Engle Supports Criminalization of Homosexuality

Lou Engle on stage with other supporters of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill at a TheCall rally in Kampala (Michael Wilkerson / Religion Dispatches)

Lou Engle, the Dominionist evangelical preacher behind TheCall, has confirmed more or less what Uganda MP David Bahati told author Jeff Sharlet: That Engle supports Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill — at least some form that is similar to the one that is currently under consideration.

Sarah Posner, author of God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, posted an interview she conducted with Engle for the Religion Dispatches web site. In this exchange, Engle denied knowing MP David Bahati (the bill’s sponsor) or Julius Oyet, who appears to be a major behind-the-scenes player in promoting the draconian bill in Uganda, and he denied supporting the bill when meeting with Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo. But he also said that “we appreciated the two guys [Bahati and Oyet] whose hearts were to bring forth a principled bill.”

Posner asked a series of questions specific to the bill. Engle denied supporting the death penalty provision, although he believed that there was a biblical basis for having one under certain circumstances. She also asked what other provisions in the bill he didn’t support:

I pressed him about which penalties in the bill he didn’t support — and he did say that although he could see someone supporting the death penalty, he did not, and he did not support “hard labor” as punishment or the requirement that churches report LGBT people to the authorities. But when I asked him if he would support a bill with less harsh penalties, he added: 

My main thing is to keep — is to not allow it to be legalized, so to speak, so then it just spreads through the legal system of the nation. So I’m not — I’m not making a statement as to what I think the penalties should be. It’s not my job to do that. I do think, I do think that these leaders are trying to make at least some kind of statement that you’re not just going to spread the agenda without some kind of restraint, a legal restraint and punishment. And I don’t know what the line is on those, but I can’t go that far as I understand that bill already said. [emphasis mine]

Engle admitted that his praise for the bill’s supporters’ “principled stand” might have led them to believe that he supported the bill. Although he insisted he did not support the bill as written, “I did support the principle of a nation saying, restraining it from coming into their nation.” He then went on to maintain that because homosexuality hasn’t been “restrained” in the United States, “I don’t think it’s going to be good for the nation, it sweeps into the education system, and the church is going to end up losing its privilege to have its own voice. Gender rights, will trump religious rights. I think it’s wrong, it’s not good for society. Those are the statements I came with, so frankly I was quite surprised to be thrown into this huge controversy.”

According to this interview, it appears that Lou Engle’s position on Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill is virtually identical to that of Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively. Lively, too, says that he doesn’t support the death penalty, but he finds the rest of the bill acceptable. Lively has called the bill “a step in the right direction” several times. More recently, he told Current TV’s Marianna van Zeller that passage of the bill would be “the lesser of two evils.” When asked whether that endorsement includes the death penalty, Lively had to struggle with that option for quite a long time before finally deciding that he still doesn’t support it, even as the “lesser of two evils.”

Engle now appears to hold the exact same position as Lively.

Las Vegas Church Which Supports Ugandan “Kill-The-Gays” Pastor Wants To Test You for HIV

Top: Canyon Ridge Community Church in Las Vegas wants to test you for HIV. Bottom: Canyon Ridge's "dearly beloved family and friend" wants to kill you for being HIV-positive.

A Las Vegas church wants to test you for HIV. That church’s strategic partner and “dearly beloved friend and family” wants to put you to death if you are HIV-positive.

Canyon Ridge Christian Church, which lists Uganda pastor Martin “Eat Da Poo Poo” Ssempa as an international “strategic partner,” will host for National HIV Testing Day on June 27, 2010. According to a notice on the church’s web site:

Because of Canyon Ridge Christian Church’s commitment to “be a show of compassion” to our community and an instrumental force in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, we will be offering FREE HIV testing from 10 AM – 4 PM provided by the Southern Nevada Health District (fingerprick test with results in 15 minutes).

That compassion to the community also apparently extends to providing continued support for on of Africa’s most virulently homophobic pastors. Canyon Ridge has defended their partnership with Ssempa despite his avid support for Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which adds the death sentence for LGBT people under certain circumstances. Ironically, one of those circumstances which call for the death penalty is simply being HIV-positive. Here is the bill’s text for that section:

3. Aggravated homosexuality.
(1) A person commits the offense of aggravated homosexuality where the

…(b) offender is a person living with HIV; …

(2) A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death.

It doesn’t end there. The bill also mandates that those who are accused of homosexuality be tested for HIV, presumably to determine their eligibility for the death penalty:

(3) Where a person is charged with the offence under this section, that person shall undergo a medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status.

The bill would also criminalize employers, family members and medical professionals who fail to report LBBT people to the police within 24 hours. The bill would further jeopardize HIV/AIDS prevention efforts by imposing criminal penalties on anyone who “aids and abets” homosexuality or provides accurate information on safe sex practices for the prevention if HIV infection.

That Canyon Ridge — or indeed any American Church — would continue to defend its association with Ssempa is, frankly unimaginable. But that is precisely the case here. In a post to Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton, Canyon Ridge pastor Mitch Harrison not only refused to disassociate from Ssempa, he said that Ssempa was among his “dearly beloved friends and family.”

This dearly beloved friend has been the public face for the “Kill-The-Gays” movement in Uganda. He eagerly embraced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill since its inception. Ssempa has been the instigator behind several forced outing campaigns, and he has hurled accusations of homosexuality toward rival pastors in an attempt to improve his own standing. Since the draconian bill’s introduction in Parliament last fall, Ssempa responded to international criticism by blatantly lying about the bill’s contents on several occasions. Those same distortions have been picked up by several leading American backers of the bill as well. More recently, Ssempa has resorted to showing hard-core graphic pornography in churches and press conferences in order to stir up hatred and revulsion toward gay people.

And Canyon Ridge is providing material support for all of this activity, while simultaneously generating positive press in Las Vegas for their “outreach” to the gay community. It’s time for the LGBT community in Las Vegas to make their presence known.

[Hat tip: Warren Throckmorton]

Update: Change.org has a petition urging the Southern Nevada Health District to demand that Canyon Ridge condemn Ssempa’s work in Uganda. The form automatically sends an email directly to the Southern Nevada Health District. You can sign the petition using the widget below:

Uganda “Kill-The-Gays” Bill Supporter To Speak In St. Louis

Lou Engle, who was recently revealed to be a behind-the-scenes supporter of Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, will be speaking for the next three weeks at the Gateway House of Prayer in St. Louis. Engle will speak nightly between June 20 to July 12. Michael Brown will also be speaking as well.

Lou Engle on stage with other supporters of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill at a TheCall rally in Kampala (Michael Wilkerson / Religion Dispatches)

Last month, Engle conducted a TheCall Rally at the sports field of Kampala’s Makarere University. According to numerous reports, that event was a political rally calling for passage of the draconian legislation which imposes the death penalty under certain circumstances. It will also provide criminal penalties for family members who refuse to report gay people to police. Engle’s rally featured key bill supporters, including the bill’s sponsor MP David Bahati, Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo, and Ugandan pastor Julius Oyet. Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, spent a considerable amount of time with Bahati and Oyet, and reported that they both told him that Engle actually supports the bill, despite his ambiguous public statements attempting to distance himself from the proposals.

The Gateway House of Prayer appears to be an outgrowth of the Kansas City-based International House of Prayer. Gateway House of Prayer is located on S. Lindbergh Blvd. in the western St. Louis suburb of Rock Hill.

Does Lou Engle Really Oppose Uganda’s “Kill-the-gays” Bill?

The answer to that very simple question was never clear. Today, we might have a bit more clarity than before. If so, the news isn’t good.

Lou Engle addressing a rally in Kampala, Uganda. (Marc Hofer/New York Times)

American evangelical leader Lou Engle traveled to Uganda last month to put on another of his TheCall rallies on the sports field of Makarere University in Kampala. That event turned into a political rally in support for passage of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The rally featured key bill supporters like MP David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor; Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo, and Ugandan pastor Julius Oyet. Just before Engle traveled to the rally, he released an extremely ambiguous statement in which he promised that he “will not promote this bill.” He continued:

In fact, we challenge the Church of Uganda to join with Christians around the world, to first examine our own moral failures, confess our own lack of love, and from that heart seek to establish true biblical standards, reflecting compassion for those struggling with same-sex attraction and equal justice for criminal offenses committed by heterosexuals or homosexuals. We believe this also reflects the heart and intent of the Christian leaders of Uganda.

But news reports from Uganda itself suggests that Engle went back on his promise and spoke in favor of the bill. The New York Times reported that he praised Uganda for its “courage” and “righteousness” in proposing the bill. Further reports indicate that while Engle was clearly careful in not calling explicitly for the bill’s passage, he nevertheless gave his implicit support by defending Uganda’s pastors who were dealing “with a controversy they never wanted.” He also refused to comment when other speakers took the stage and demanded the bill’s passage. It’s pretty obvious from several reports of people who were there that the crowd was left with the distinct impression that Engle supported the bill, and Engle did nothing to disabuse them of it.

Five weeks later, and almost immediately following Exodus International president Alan Chambers’ contrite statement regretting his failure to more vigorously oppose the infamous “nuclear bomb” conference held in March of 2009, Engle tried to jump on the same bandwagon. Just two days later, Engle issued a press release:

I was actually asked to release a petition at TheCall for the people to sign in support of the Bill. I did not allow that to happen because the purpose of the gathering was not a political gathering; it was a prayer gathering. However, I had to leave the prayer meeting early to catch our flight back home. After returning home, I was told that the Bill had been clearly promoted after I left the meeting. I apologize that this took place and that my stated purpose of not promoting the Bill was compromised. I take responsibility for what was done on the stage of TheCall, even in my absence.

Engle’s apparent defense is that his tacit non-endorsing endorsement could have been worse. He could have circulated a petition that would have removed any lingering doubt whatsoever as to his real stance on the bill. Thanks for small favors.

But even if we try to look at this with the deepest rose-colored charitable glass-half-full benefit of the doubt, Engle’s true position on the bill still remains ambiguous at best. Even in this latest statement, he repeated his admiration for Uganda’s commitment ” to raise up a principled stand to protect their people and their children from an unwelcome intrusion of homosexual ideology.”

So even under the most generous assumptions, Engle’s stand with this bill would still remain anybody’s guess. I think you know mine. And today, we have some more information which confirms my strong suspicion that Engle really supports the bill but won’t actually allow those precise words to escape from his lips.

Engle’s most recent statement prompted Jeff Sharlet to write about his encounter with the bill’s supporters while attending Engle’s rally in Kampala. Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, spent quite a bit of time with Oyet and Bahati immediately following the rally and reports that they were both “ecstatic at what they perceived as Engle’s strong support of the bill. They felt his rally and his statements would be a turning point for the bill, reassuring their Ugandan allies that they had support abroad.”

Sharlet also says that Oyet and Bahati both insisted that Engle had explicitly supported the bill when speaking with them, but that he had to “lie to the Western media because gays control it.” Bahati recounted that Engle spoke to the BBC against the bill, and then promptly walked over to Bahati offer his private support. Sharlet continues:

I tend to believe Bahati here, since Engle didn’t mean anything to him until he met him that day. He hadn’t heard of him and decided to attend the rally only after I’d told him a few things about Engle. In other words, he left the rally thrilled with Engle based on that encounter with Engle alone. Clearly, Engle did something to please him.

Sharlet also says that despite reports that Uganda may remove the death penalty from the bill, both Bahati and Oyet strongly support retaining the provision.

"Apostle" Julius Oyet

Sharlet confirms that Oyet is playing a very prominent role in promoting the bill, and is now officially working for Bahati. I’ve heard some suggestions that Oyet is the bill’s true author, but that hasn’t been confirmed. He is, nevertheless, very closely identified with it. For example, we know that Oyet was in the visitors gallery when the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced in Parliament last October, and that the Parliament’s Speaker specifically acknowledged him and commended his presence there.

Oyet is the self-styled “apostle” who is vice-president of the Born Again Federation, an umbrella group of some 10,000 Ugandan Pentecostal churches. He is also an adherent of “Seven Mountains” theology, a Dominionist theology that calls upon Christians to “establish the Kingdom of God on earth” by claiming possession to “the Seven Mountains of Culture namely: Business, Government, Religion, Family, Media, Education and Entertainment.” Oyet is also the head of the College of Prayer International’s Uganda branch. MP David Bahati, the credited author and sponsor of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, is one of eight MP’s serving on COPI’s “servant leadership team” in Parliament.

Finally, according to Sharlet, “Oyet insisted that there are American church leaders who are supporting the bill privately but lying to the American media about it.” This repeats almost word-for-word what Bahati told Current TV’s Mariana van Zeller: 

The many friends that we have, especially evangelicals in America, when we speak to them privately they do support us. They encourage us, but they are in a society that is very hostile. And we appreciate that and we say do what you think is right for your conscience. …But we have support in America. There are people who support what we are engaged in.

At that time, I asked aloud who some of those Americans might be. Today, we may very well have one answer: Lou Engle.

Why Does This Las Vegas Church Still Support Uganda’s “Kill-The-Gays” Pastor?

Top: Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas. Bottom: Canyon Ridge's "strategic partner" showing hard-core porn at a press conference.

Uganda pastor Martin Ssempa has become the public face of the “Kill-The-Gays” movement in Uganda, having eagerly embraced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill since its inception. Ssempa has been the instigator behind several forced outing campaigns, and he has hurled accusations of homosexuality toward rival pastors in an attempt to improve his own standing. Since the draconian bill’s introduction in Parliament last fall, Ssempa responded to international criticism by blatantly lying about the bill’s contents on several occasions. Those same distortions have been picked up by several leading American backers of the bill as well. More recently, Ssempa has resorted to showing hard-core graphic pornography in churches and press conferences in order to stir up hatred and revulsion toward gay people.

Ssempa had previously enjoyed backing from several American conservative Christian leaders and organizations, but one by one, they have mostly dropped him, either in embarrassment over his latest antics or in revulsion over his relentless support for proposals to kill gay people under certain circumstances. Most notably, Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren, who had previously been identified as having had ties to Ssempa, “vigorously condemned” the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in December and disclosed that he had cut ties with Ssempa in 2007 over his “beliefs and actions.”

Another American backer, the Evergreen, Colorado-based abstinence advocacy group WAIT Training, announced that “[r]ecent developments in Uganda and around the world associated with Ssempa have caused us to sever all former associations with him.” WAIT Training is so adamant about it that this notice appears on the front page of WAIT’s web site (Note: A video automatically plays when the page is loaded). Philadelphia Bible University, which had previously granted Ssempa an honorary doctorate degree in 2006, denounced Ssempa’s activities and “categorically condemn[ed] any position that calls for violence against human beings created in the image and likeness of God.”

Not so with Las Vegas-based Canyon Ridge Christian Church. They continue to list Ssempa as a Global Outreach Strategic Partner. Last February, Grove City College professor and Evangelical Christian Warren Throckmorton contacted the church to ask about their association with Ssempa. Executive Pastor Mitch Harrison responded:

With the oversight of our elders and missions team, we constantly evaluate our ministry partners and their activities. We will only support those who engage in and promote activities consistent with the redemptive and grace-filled purposes of Jesus Christ in the world.

Canyon Ridge Christian Church does not wish to enter into the debate over the legislation in Uganda. We do encourage those involved to seek God’s leadership in humility and grace and to follow Jesus command to love one another as they wrestle with this difficult issue. Our prayers are for the good of the people Uganda.

That was in February, and Canyon Ridge hasn’t bothered to life a finger “for the good of the people of Uganda” since then.  Meanwhile, Ssempa led a march in Jinja calling for swift passage of the proposed death penalty for HIV-positive gay people and “repeat offenders”. He has also  appeared on ABC’s Nightline, in which he was shown displaying gay porn in his church. He also called homosexuality a form of “sexual terrorism.” More recently, Ssempa was featured on Current TV’s Vanguard episode, “Missionaries of Hate,” again displaying porn at churches, news conferences, and virtually everywhere else he can think of.

And still, Canyon Ridge dithers. In response to the Vanguard documentary, Canyon Ridge sent the following message to Warren Throckmorton:

The mission partners of Canyon Ridge Christian Church are more than just names on a bulletin board or a web site, they are our dearly loved friends and family. Because of this, we take seriously our commitment to them. When accusations or ill reports come to us about one of our partners and their ministry activities, we’re committed to do what the Bible instructs us to do; we go to our partners (when possible, going to see them face to face) and work through the issues with them personally. We don’t make public statements about our partners until we have worked through issues with them personally and brought those issues to resolution. We have been and are currently in conversation with Martin Ssempa and others regarding the controversy in Uganda and his activities in addressing it.

One has to wonder how long Canyon Ridge can dither while Uganda burns. More importantly, one wonders what Canyon Ridge stands to gain by being publicly associated with a man who wants to either kill gay people or imprison them for the rest of their lives. Or who wants to imprison the friends and families of gay people who refuse to turn them over to police. These issues aren’t something new that Canyon Ridge has only now discovered. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was tabled before Parliament last October, but Ssempa’s public outing campaigns were going on in the Spring of 2009. And those weren’t the first for him either. He also participated in public vigilante and outing campaigns in several successive years prior to 2009.

Given Ssempa’s egregious and dangerous activities, it is critical to know exactly what kind of support Canyon Ridge provides to further his cause. How much money does Canyon Ridge supply to Ssempa? What other resources have they provided and continue to provide? In what ways exactly are Canyon Ridge facilitating Ssempa’s campaign to literally legislate gay people out of existence?

And for how much longer will they continue to provide that support?

Exodus President Expresses Regret For Uganda Debacle

In March 2009, a member of the Board of Directors for Exodus International, Don Schmierer, travelled to Uganda with holocaust revisionist Scott Lively to conduct what has since become a notorious anti-gay conference whose repercussions — including the drafting of a proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill to add the death penalty for gay people under certain circumstances — continue to reverberate in that country today. Today, more than fifteen months later, Exodus International President Alan Chambers released an unusually frank statement acknowledging his failure to advice Schmierer to cancel his appearance at the conference.

The statement, posted on Exodus International’s blog, in my view constitutes a fairly comprehensive acknowledgment of Chambers personal failings over his handling of the Uganda debacle. While the statement does not use the word “apology” specifically, he provides a detailed self-examination of his mistakes along some of the motives for making them and expresses regret for them. If there’s one thing I gained from my Catholic education, it’s that I think I can recognize a genuine act of contrition when I see one. This statement goes far beyond anything I had ever expected to see.

In the statement, Chambers acknowledges receiving prior warnings from BTB’s Timothy Kincaid, as well as Ex-Gay Watch’s David Roberts and Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton, but says that he didn’t give the warnings the attention they deserved. What’s more, he acknowledges that the reason he didn’t heed them was “due to who was issuing them.”

My initial belief was that their major concern was over Caleb Lee Brundidges association with Richard Cohen. Again, no excuses, I was negligent in digging deeper and heeding their warnings. While I did share my concerns with Don Schmierer prior to the event, he was on the ground in Uganda and I saw this as an issue that didn’t warrant him canceling his appearance there—after all, in my mind, Don was simply sharing his normal talk on parenting. I do realize that his mere presence there, even as a private citizen, did give the appearance that Exodus was endorsing the conference and eventually the horrific political position that was fueled by that event.

As I have stated in less trafficked public settings, I am disappointed that some of my reasons for not heeding warnings was due to who was issuing them. I believe that probably works both ways, but in this case my error was grave. I cannot undo my initial lack of, then delayed, response or the harm that it caused, but I have learned from that terrible mistake and tried to make amends by condemning the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009 and by standing with a cross-spectrum group of people to see that the measure is, itself, killed. Exodus and I will continue to do that with regard to the Uganda measure or any other similar law or proposed law in other nations. We will also seek to condemn that which is condemnable more swiftly; not to do so finds us breech in our responsibility as an organization people look to for biblical wisdom.

I have no doubt that I will be pilloried by fellow LGBT advocates for saying this, but while I find the statement’s tardiness indefensible (as Chambers acknowledges near the beginning of his statement), I also find it to be a complete and heartfelt acknowledgement of virtually all of our criticisms concerning Exodus’ connections with the events in Uganda. Sure, our larger differences over the political goals and therapeutically-questionable methods of the ex-gay movement remain intractable. And Exodus’ ongoing efforts to export the culture war to foreign lands where they may not necessarily appreciate the cultural nuances of the host country remain a source of deep concern. But with regard to Exodus’ connection with this particular debacle in Uganda, this is much, much closer to the kind of statement that I wish they had released earlier.

I do, however, believe that Schmierer owes the world a similar act of self-examination. Aside from a few defensive and self-serving comments, his continued silence remains perhaps the most critical missing voice in all of this.

As Timothy Kincaid has already reported, this statement addresses another critical shortcoming that I and others have called on them to address from the beginning. At the conclusion of this statement, Chambers announced that Exodus has drafted a new policy statement against criminalization of homosexuality. While this isn’t the first time Exodus or Chambers have spoken against criminalization, it is the first time Exodus has placed such a statement directly on their main web site in a permanent location where it will be easy for everyone to find.

This statement is ridiculously overdue, but I heartily welcome it nonetheless. And I hope that it will serve as an example for other Evangelical groups with ties to Uganda and elsewhere around the world.

Addendum: A genuine act of contrition calls on the penitent to make amends. Chambers says that they “will continue to [condemn] the Uganda measure or any other similar law or proposed law in other nations.” For this to be effective, it must be pro-active, not reactive. Responding because their opponents are calling them to account comes across as weak and, as Scott Lively put it, “effeminate”. Time will tell whether that particular message has sunk in.

Did FRC Lie To Congress About the Ugandan “Kill-The-Gays” Bill?

The Family Research Council yesterday responded to criticisms that they lobbied Congress against a House resolution denouncing Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. As part of their response, they claimed that they wanted to make the resolution “more factually accurate regarding the content of the Uganda bill.” I have several concerns over the FRC’s ability to discern “factually accurate” information.

And knowing that supporters of Uganda’s “kill-the-gays” bill have spread false information themselves about what the bill actually includes, it’s still very much an open question what parts of the House resolution the FRC considered inaccurate. But this FRC radio broadcast from Tony Perkins soon after the National Prayer Breakfast of Feb 4, 2010 gives us a clue to what the FRC may have been telling Congress:

Does civility require the acceptance of all behavior? Hello, I am Tony Perkins with the Family Research Council. At the recent National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama took the podium calling for greater civility in Washington, which in my opinion is a laudable goal. However, his comments quickly turned to his preoccupation with defending homosexuality. The President criticized Ugandan leaders for considering enhance penalties for crimes related to homosexuality. The press has widely mischaracterized the law which calls for the death penalty, not for homosexual behavior which is already a crime, but for acts such as intentionally spreading HIV/AIDS, or preying upon vulnerable individuals such as children, which has been a problem in Uganda for years because the large number of orphans. The President said that “We may disagree about gay marriage, “but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are.” Mr. President as long as you characterize efforts to uphold moral conduct that protects others and in particular the most vulnerable, as attacking people, civility will continue to evade us. [Emphasis mine]

This is lifted almost verbatin from Martin Ssempa’s false defense of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. As we’ve gone over before again and again, Perkins’ clam that the law calls for the death penalty for intentionally spreading HIV/AIDS or that it only addresses those who prey on vulnerable individuals is flat-out wrong. And as is typical with the bill’s supporters, the FRC refuses to link to the actual text of the bill itself — something that we do with each and every post mentioning the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. And they don’t for good reason: They don’t want you to know what the bill really says.

So once again, as we have done so many times in the past, let’s look at the bill again. Here’s the clause defining “Aggravated Homosexuality”:

3. Aggravated homosexuality.
(1) A person commits the offense of aggravated homosexuality where the

(a) person against whom the offence is committed is below the age of 18 years;

(b) offender is a person living with HIV;

(c) offender is a parent or guardian of the person against whom the offence is committed;

(d) offender is a person in authority over the person against whom the offence is committed;

(e) victim of the offence is a person with disability;

(f) offender is a serial offender, or

(g) offender applies, administers or causes to be used by any man or woman any drug, matter or thing with intent to stupefy overpower him or her so as to there by  enable any person to have unlawful carnal connection with any person of the same sex,

(2) A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death.

(3) Where a person is charged with the offence under this section, that person shall undergo a medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status.

Clause 3. (1) (b) was often cited to support the claim that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill would impose the death penalty for the “deliberate” spread of HIV, but it is important to note that the bill contains no requirement that the intent be deliberate at all. In fact, the third subclause would suggest that the death penalty would apply upon receiving a positive serostatus result from an HIV test, which might very well be the first time the charged individual would know he or she was HIV-positive. Alternately, if the accused already knew he was HIV-positive, the proposed bill provides no acknowledgment that the accused’s partner may have known about it and entered into a consensual relationship.

Yes, clause 3. (1) (a) includes a prohibition against sex with a minor, and (e) prohibits sex with a “person with disability,” but again, this clause assumes that a disabled person — perhaps someone who is deaf, blind or in a wheelchair, for example — is unable to provide consent. Nowhere in the bill does it suggest that proof that the individual did not consent is needed.

And them of course, there’s the problem with (f), where the “offender is a serial offender.” That could mean anyone who has ever had more than one partner, or anyone who has had sex with his or her partner more than once. And as Rob Tisinai demonstrated, the bill is so badly written that the death penalty for the “serial offender” is so poorly written, just about anyone can be convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.”

But as we have demonstrated so many times in the past, the Family “Research” Council’s inability to comprehend plain English has likely meant that they have provided factually incorrect information to the House and Senate.

I know the boys at FRC are very smart people with good reading comprehension skills. Which is why I know that if this is the message they brought to the Hill, they did so deliberately to obscure the true nature of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. And if anyone wants to obscure the true nature of the draconian bill to claim that all it does is “uphold(s) moral conduct that protects others and in particular the most vulnerable,” then that can only mean one thing. The Family “Research” Council wants to kill you.

That’s the base assumption, and it’s a reasonable one. After all, we know they want to criminalize you. If they believe otherwise, then they need to come clean on exactly what they felt was so “factually inaccurate” about the House resolution.

[Hat tip to BTB reader L. Junius Brutus]

FRC’s Response To Ugandan Resolution Lobbying Efforts Leaves More Questions Than Answers

As Joe Jervis uncovered last night, the Family Research Council lobbied against a bipartisan House Resolution which expressed “unequivocal United States opposition to the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009’ introduced in the Ugandan Parliament.” It appears that the FRC’s position on Uganda’s proposal to impose the death penalty for gay people under certain circumstances was considerably more equivocal.

Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton contacted Tom McClusky, who was listed as one of the two lobbyists, in the FRC’s Lobbying Disclosure Report, and asked about their lobbying efforts:

While he declined to say which members were lobbied, he said, “We didn’t necessarily lobby against or for the resolution but tried to work with offices to make the language more neutral on homosexuality.” He added his recollection was that “the original language was incorrect on what Uganda was doing as well.” McClusky said the lobbying took place before the resolution was introduced but did not say what, if anything, was altered as the result of their efforts. As for the Ugandan bill, he said that the FRC has never taken a position on the death penalty. Regarding H.Res. 1064, he added, “We have not taken a public position on the current resolution.”

This opens far more questions than it answers. Here is what we still don’t know:

What “errrors” did the FRC seek to correct. As I read the current resolution, I see none. Were there, in fact, errors? This is important because we know very well that supporters of the bill have been disseminating false information about it. Was the FRC doing the same thing as well?

Now that we have a resolution that the FRC appears to have been concerned about, what is their position on it now? Do they still oppose its passage? Are they behind the reasons for resolution’s being stalled in the House?

And what is the FRC’s position on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill itself? Do they support the death penalty or life imprisonment? Do they still support criminalization? Do they support the provisions which target friends, families, co-workers, and healthcare providers of gay people? Do they support state-sanctioned censorship against speaking out on the behalf of gay people?

The FRC opened this can of worms by lobbying on this issue. They clearly have an opinion about it and cared enough to spend thousands of dollars on it. With Ugandan lives at stake, it’s time for the FRC to fess up. Otherwise, based on past experience with this outfit, it is not at all unreasonable to assume the worst.

Family Research Council Supports Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” Bill

Joe Jervis was provided a copy of a 20-page Family Research Council lobbying report:

According to the FRC’s official lobbying report for the first quarter of 2010, they paid two of their henchmen $25,000 to lobby Congress against approving a resolution denouncing Uganda’s plan to execute homosexuals. The resolution passed in the Senate on April 13th, but remains languished in the House almost four months after being referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Did the FRC’s lobbying kill it?

It turns out that you can download the first quarter 2010 report yourself here. (You may have to change the filename extension to .pdf to view it) Right there on page 3, you will see House Resolution 1064, “Uganda Resolution, Pro-homosexual promotion” listed as the general lobbying issue area. Tom McClusky and David Christensen were listed as the lobbyists. McClusky is the FRC’s Vice President for Government Affairs. Christensen is the FRC’s Senior Director of Congressional Affairs.

I searched the Senate’s Lobbying reports and found a similar report filed by the FRC. (no direct link available, but you can search here for “Family Research Council” as the Registrant’s name to find the 4/12/2010 filing.) Page 3 of the Senate report for the fourth quarter of 2010  shows that McClusky and Christensen also lobbied U.S. Senators against the CIVH Res. 1064, which they list as “Ugandan Resolution, Pro-homosexual promotion.”

Both reports were filed on the FRC’s behalf by Paul J. Tripodi, FRC’s Vice President for Administration.

In a recent documentary, Ugandan MP David Bahati, who introduced the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill in that nation’s Parliament, told Current TV that American evangelicals have told him privately that they support his “kill-the-gays” bill, despite publicly distancing themselves from the controversial proposal.

In February 2010, Peter Sprigg, the Family Research Council’s “Senior Fellow for Policy Studies” has said that he fully supports criminalizing homosexuality in the United States. In 2008, he quipped that he wanted to see all gay people deported. He later apologized for that remark.

Nonetheless, we now know that Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, Kenneth Blackwell, McClusky, Christensen and the rest of that ilk want you dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

Earth Times: Uganda to Drop Anti-Gay Bill

That’s according to this Earth Times article, which is the only outlet I’ve been able to find carrying this report.

Uganda has reassured Germany it does not support a bid by one parliamentarian to outlaw homosexual acts, in order to win an extension of existing aid payments, German officials said Friday.

The German development aid ministry said in Berlin it had cleared pledges totalling 120 million euros (148 million dollars) to Uganda over the next three years. That aid would be conditional on Uganda not passing any legislation imposing new penalties on homosexual acts.

Foreign Minister Kutesa hinted last December that the bill might not go forward. This latest report adds further momentum to earlier reports suggesting that the bill would be dropped.

With Earth Times being the only news outlet carrying this report that I’ve been able to find, it’s hard to know the report’s origin. Earth Times generally covers environmental issues, although it also describes itself as “a forum from ‘voices from the field or street’ – everyday men and women who are active agents of change and whose points of view are seldom heard in the mainstream media.”

[Hat tip: Warren Throckmorton]

Scott Lively Struggles With Uganda’s Death Penalty

Current TV’s Vanguard reporter Mariana van Zeller has posted some outtakes from her outstanding documentary “Missionaries of Hate“. Already, we saw a six-minute interview with Ugandan MP David Bahati, who introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into Parliament in October 2009. What follows is an extended clip of her interview with Scott Lively, the American holocaust revisionist who delivered his infamous “Nuclear Bomb” at the March 2009 conference in Kampala that set the stage for the bill.

Lively leads off with the boast that he was “one of the people that helped to start the pro-family movement there. … This was all new to them.” And so they asked him to speak. It’s an interesting boast.  Lively claims credit for parachuting into this lost country and setting up a “pro-family” movement. Those poor Ugandan’s couldn’t have done it without him. But criticizing him for firming up the conditions that facilitated the Ugandans who put forth and supported the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, well, that’s racist to suggest Ugandans weren’t capable of doing this all on their own. (Of course, nobody has suggested such a thing. We’ve only noted his active participation in the process.) Yet there’s not even the slightest hint that this glaring contradiction has ever crossed his mind.

This clip also provides clearer context to Lively’s statement in the documentary where he calls the bill the “lesser of two evils,” the two evils being the bill itself or allowing the so-called “gay agenda” to take over Uganda. In the documentary, it wasn’t entirely clear whether the form of the bill he was endorsing as the “lesser of two evils” included or excluded the death penalty. In this clip, he’s more clearly against the death penalty, but he really has to struggle with it for quite a while before he gets there. After mulling over a few possibilities for its inclusion, he finally says, “I don’t believe that it’s… that I could support it that way.” Even still, it looked to me as though he was reluctant to say even this much against the bill. He looks as if he still needs some convincing.

Watch:

Click here to read a rush transcript of the interview.