Box Turtle Bulletin

TIME Is Right And TIME IS Wrong

There is so much to love about Tim Padgett’s column in TIME magazine this week. Padgett, a Catholic, examines the rhetoric of the Church and of conservative Christians generally demonizing gay people in the U.S. during recent marriage campaign, and, noting the influence some American Christians have in Uganda, connects their rhetoric to what’s happening there now:

No, the real question that conservative Christians from Florida to France to Fiji need to ask themselves at this point is this: By crusading to deny gays and lesbians the right to legally marry — by insisting that God doesn’t consider loving gay unions morally worthy of matrimony and therefore the state shouldn’t either — do they risk demonizing “the phenomena of homosexuality” as inhumanely as the Ugandans are? It’s of course a good thing that the Vatican has condemned the “abuse of homosexual persons.” But as a Catholic, I’m all too aware that Pope Benedict XVI has also said that saving humanity from homosexuals is as crucial as saving rain forests from lumberjacks. And that a Vatican spokesman, after last month’s pro-gay-marriage votes in the U.S., made the equally cruel remark that gay marriage is a slippery slope to polygamy. Don’t blame Ugandan Catholics if they’re getting dangerously mixed signals from Rome.

Still, conservative Christians will claim that St. Paul’s denunciation of homosexuality leaves them no scriptural wiggle room. But St. Paul also condoned slavery, and I think we can safely say Christianity has managed to wiggle out of that one, just as Jews today feel O.K. about ignoring the Torah’s edict to stone nonvirgin brides to death. Like everything else in life, religion has to evolve. If it doesn’t — if it remains as rigidly static as so much Christian doctrine has so far in the 21st century — it risks the irrelevance it increasingly faces in the U.S.

Padgett’s argues that Christianity is in danger of not just being on the wrong side of history,but also “on the wrong side of Christianity, as Ugandan Christendom is this Christmas.” It’s a compelling thought-provoking piece. But, it’s one that’s marred in its setup with these factual errors which — you know me — I can’t let go:

The anti-homosexuality bill speeding through Uganda’s parliament right now — which that body’s Speaker has pledged will pass by year’s end as a “Christmas gift” to its backers — would impose draconian new punishments. Among them: a seven-year prison sentence for consenting adults who have gay sex, life sentences for people in same-sex marriages and jail for even those who don’t report gays and lesbians in their midst. Fortunately, Ugandan lawmakers say they’ve dropped the bill’s death penalty in cases of “aggravated homosexuality,” in which HIV is spread or gay adults have sex with minors.

Yeah. Fortunately the lawmakers say they made those changes, but unfortunately there is no basis whatsoever for taking them at their word. These lines seriously mar an otherwise splendid piece, and since TIME doesn’t seem to have an up-to-snuff fact-checking staff — maybe they took an early Christmas break — I’ll go ahead and do their work for them.

When members of the Legal and Parliamentary Committee emerged from their closed-door meetings two weeks ago, they announced that the lifetime sentence in Clause 2 was reduced to seven years and the death penalty in Clause 3 was changed to life imprisonment. And then they said this: they can’t show you their draft recommendations because, you know, it’s a secret.

Seriously. They said that.

Which means that we have no idea what the committee actually recommended. And that’s important because the last time the committee claimed that they recommended removing the death penalty from the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in 2011, they lied. Completely, totally lied.  Their report claiming the recommend removing the death penalty actually recommended that it be replaced with a reference to the penalty spelled out in Section 129 of the Penal Code — which calls for the death penalty.

But whatever the committee’s recommendations may be, under Uganda’s Parliamentary procedures committees do not have the authority to make any changes to the bill. They can only recommend changes to the full House. It is up to the House to accept the committees recommendations — or reject them, if they so desire — before any changes can be made to the bill. And since that hasn’t happened yet, the bill still remains exactly as it was on the day it was first introduced, death penalty and all.

Padgett also copied virtually line-by-line the bills’ supporters propaganda that the death peanlty only applied cases where “HIV is spread” or where sex with minors is involved. That has been M.P. David Bahati’s favorite line from the very moment he first introduced the bill in 2009. But a plain reading of the bill’s straightforward language, which is written in very simple English, renders that interpretation woefully inadequate:

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.

Journalists have had a very sad history of getting this bill so very wrong so many times in its three year history. Padgett is identified as TIME’s Miami and Latin America bureau chief, which, the last time I looked at an atlas, doesn’t include Africa. So I guess he can be excused for getting these facts wrong. He gets an A for effort, if not for the final result. TIME’s fact-checkers, though, get a big fat red F. Which is a shame, because if they had just fixed those few sentences, Padgett’s column would have been stellar.

Ugandan Activist Speaks Out Against Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Her name is Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, but her friends call her “Bombastic Kasha.” She is Executive Director of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG) and the 2011 winner of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. She narrowly escaped arrest last February when Ugandan police raided a gay rights conference in Entebbe.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that Pepsi has a very large presence in Uganda. One group is calling on Pepsico to speak out against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill:

…(O)ur allies on the ground tell us that if Pepsi, which has a huge presence in Uganda, speaks out against the bill and the harmful effect it would have on investment and economic development in Uganda, it would force Ugandan officials to put the bill on hold — or even pull it entirely. Add your name to our petition to Pepsi, telling it to speak out against this horrific “Kill the Gays” bill that’s racing through the Ugandan Parliament.

Uganda May Consider Anti-Homosexuality Bill This Week

Today’s Order Paper (DOC: 37KB/4 pages) for the Uganda Parliament shows that among the first items on the agenda is a report from the Rules, Privileges and Discipline Committee. That committee is expected to present the results of its investigation on last week’s chaotic breakdown in Parliament which led to its suspension for the rest of the week.

Parliament’s session ended last Tuesday when Speaker Rebecca Kadaga suddenly bolted from the chamber after losing control of the debate over a controversial clause in one of the Petroleum Bills. Proposed changes to Clause 9 of the Petroleum( Exploration, Development and Production) Bill would empower a single person in President Yoweri Museveni’s cabinet to negotiate and sign contracts for oil exploration, drilling, refining and transportation. Because the bill gives no oversight or transparancy into that process, it will effectively legalize the wholesale theft of Uganda’s potential oil wealth. The proposed changes to Clause 9 are backed by Museveni, whose ruling National Resistance Movement controls more than 70% of Parliament, making the clause’s passage very likely.

So, what does the timeline for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill look like? Today’s report from the Rules Committee will likely be boistrous and time consuming, and may take most of the day today. But once that’s done, movement on the two Petroleum Bill’s could go rather quickly — as early as tomorrow — assuming Museveni has sufficiently incentivised his MPs to complete the legalized swindle.

Once that’s done (and after a vote on the Accountants Bill, which Warren Throckmorton reports has already occurred.), then the Anti-Homosexuality Bill will be the first bill “on deck” as “business to follow.” If Museveni’s version of Clause 9 of the Petroleum Bill becomes law, the government will likely find the debate and passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill to be a very politically useful diversion. He will need a lot of minds, both inside and outside of Parliament, taken off of what has happened and focused onto the one thing that has proven effective in uniting everyone: their collective hatred of gay people. That diversion will have to come very quickly if it is to achieve its maximum effect, which means that Uganda could conceivably be ready to start legally executing gay people — while Museveni quietly begins legally diverting the impoverished nation’s oil wealth to himself, his family and cronies — by the weekend. Merry Christmas, everybody!

More on Germany’s Aid Cut to Uganda; Local Papers React

Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade followed up on last week’s announcement by Dirk Niebel, Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), that Germany has suspended its foreign aid to Uganda. Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, told Johnson that the announced cuts were related to direct governmental assistance and wouldn’t affect programs:

“My understanding is that the German government decided to cut direct structural assistance from Germany to the government to the government of Uganda, but that their investments in development and other programs will continue,” Bromley said. “So, it’s not an across-the-board cut, but it’s a temporary suspension of direct structural assistance to the government.”

But Uganda’s Sunday Monitor, the nation’s largest independent newspaper, contends that Germany’s ambassador to Kampala, Klaus Dieter Düxmann, has denied Germany was cutting aid. In an article headlined, “Germany says no to cutting aid,” John Njoroge reported:

“It is not true. We are maintaining development assistance to Uganda,” Mr Düxmann said yesterday. “The embassy will give further communication in this respect in the coming days.”

But a close look at what Ambassador Düxmann said — “We are maintaining development assistance to Uganda.” — does not contradict what Bromley said, nor does it address direct government-to-government structural aid, which the Ugandan news magazine The Observer described as “budget-support aid to Uganda” — in other words, aid that was given directly to the Ugandan government to support specific governmental functions.

In last week’s announcement, Niebel cited a massive corruption in the Ugandan Prime Minister’s office in which funds from Europe were discovered in the private bank accounts of more than a dozen Ugandan officials. German also cited a U.N. report accusing Uganda and Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Parliament’s decision to consider passing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

It’s interesting that, so far, neither The Observer nor Monitor have mentioned the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a factor in Germany’s announcement.

The pro-government New Vision’s report however was more-or-less straightforward, both in the fact of Germany’s announcement and the reasons why. Of course, being pro-government meant that there has to be some amount of spin:

Uganda has said it is determined to punish all officials involved in embezzling the money, which was meant to fund recovery efforts in northern areas of the country after a lengthy insurgency by the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Germany was equally concerned about legislation that will impose an array of jail terms for convicted homosexuals, including life imprisonment in certain circumstances. U.S. President Barack Obama has branded the bill as “odious”.

“If discrimination against human rights is voted through by the Ugandan parliament, this would have consequences for our cooperation,” said Niebel.

Aid accounts for about 25 percent of Uganda’s annual budget.

Cutting the funds would put public investments in health and education at risk in Africa’s largest coffee exporter.

Of course, New Vision neglects to mention the death penalty, which is still in the Anti-Homosexuality bill despite rumors and false reports to the contrary.

Perhaps Monitor’s confusion over what Germany has done stems from another lengthy article by Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi which was published Saturday under the title, “Why Germany will not cut aid over gay bill.” Basing her thesis on an interview with Markus Loning, commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian aid in Germany’s Foreign Office on November 22 — a little over a week before last week’s announcement — Sserunjogi wrote that the German government was following the advice of local Ugandan LGBT advocates:

The German government is taking advice from gay rights activists and will not cut aid to Uganda due to the anti-gay bill now before parliament but will pressure individual politicians to block it. A German official says that they have been convinced that aid cuts don’t produce the desired results.

“Activists on the ground are asking us to do it privately and talk to people responsible to see that the law does not pass,” said Mr Markus Loning, commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian aid at the federal foreign office. Mr Loning was speaking at a conference on homosexuality and religion in Berlin on November 22.

When the Bill was first tabled in the last parliament, Mr Loning travelled to Uganda and talked to the then Speaker Edward Ssekandi and human rights activists.

Another official told us that the German foreign office told President Museveni that bilateral cooperation would cease if the Bill was passed. In short, Germany was threatening to withdraw aid to Uganda.

That threat is now on hold. “We get the backlash when aid is cut or Ugandan public figures are humiliated over gay rights,” Christine Kasha of Freedom and Roam Uganda told the conference. Ms Kasha, who is a lesbian, says gays are also Ugandans and the projects funded by donors help them too.

Sserunjogi’s article is quite sympathetic, particularly when she describes comments made at a conference in Berlin where the documentary film Call Me Kuchu was screened. The documentary described the struggles of the gay community in Kampala to secure even the most basic human rights, and ends with the murder of LGBT advocate David Kato. Sserunjogi wrote:

The Observer, for its part, very briefly reported on Germany’s announcement on aid cuts, along with the news that several local civil society organizations will mount an anti-corruption campaign beginning today:

Led by the Anti-Corruption Coalition of Uganda (ACCU), the CSOs [civil society organizations] gave the theme of the week as ‘Act against corruption now’. Other organisations include Action Aid, Uganda Debt Network (UDN), Transparency International, and Uganda National NGO Forum. They said the campaign would help expose the thieves in the country, citing  scandals  in the pension section in the ministry of Public Service, Office of the Prime Minister, and ministry of Local Government (LC bicycles), among others.

In one of the present scams, about Shs 50bn is believed to have been swindled in the OPM, with a host of civil servants, including OPM [Office of the Prime Minister] Principal Accountant Geoffrey Kazinda, already interdicted over the graft. The East African Bribery Report 2012, by Transparency International, ranks Uganda the most corrupt country in the region, with most bribery being recorded in the public service sector instead of private sector.

To give you an idea of the size of the scandal, 50 billion Uganda Shillings is about US$18.7 million.

Germany Announces Three Year Suspension of Aid to Uganda

Dirk Niebel, Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), has announced that Germany has “placed on ice” its foreign aid to Uganda (via Google Translate):

The budget support for Uganda of the BMZ has been exposed. That gave Dirk Niebel, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, announced today in Berlin. Reasons are a massive corruption scandal in Prime Minister’s Office, the allegations of the United Nations, the Ugandan military support the rebel group M23 in eastern Congo, and the debate that has flared up again about an anti-gay legislation in Uganda.

Ugandan Court had uncovered one of the most serious corruption scandals in recent years, in which 13 million euro budget support funds were embezzled from a program for the development of Northern Uganda. German funds are not affected.

Dirk Niebel: “I welcome the fact that the Ugandan Court’s task was just here Even if German agents were not concerned, I have arranged to Germany in accordance with all other donors holding back the pending disbursement of budget support We are setting a clear.. Signs: Budget support is an anomaly It reflects the highest confidence in the good governance of partners where trust has been disappointed, we must draw the appropriate consequences Therefore, the preparation for a new budget support commitments, which was planned for the period 2013 to 2015… placed on ice. ”

Reason for the decision also allegations against Uganda, the rebel group M23 in eastern Congo are to support logistically and financially. Such accusations are for the first time in the UN report of 12 October has been mentioned.

Dirk Niebel. “There is evidence that M23 was also supported by Ugandan locations logistically and materially to what extent, the Ugandan government is actively involved, remains to be the expert group of the United Nations is mandated to verify the allegations in more detail..”

The human rights situation in Uganda observed BMZ remains critical. Dirk Niebel: “We are concerned that the debate about a tightening of legislation against homosexuals in Uganda resurgence Who fired the debate in Uganda, know the needs that he so the international image of the country causing damage Should human rights discrimination in.. Ugandan Parliament be adopted, it could not remain without consequences for our cooperation. “

While the debate over the Anti-Homosxuality Bill is mentioned in the BMZ’s announcement, the main catalyist for the cuts appear to be the massive corruption scandal that was exposed in the Uganda Prime Minister’s office and the UN report alleging Uganda’s covert support for the M23 rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Britain, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have previously announced that they were cutting direct aid to the Ugandan government after learning that much of it went into the personal bank account of Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi. Britain then followed with another announcement that it had gone further by freezing all bilateral aid, including aid to NGO’s and Ugandan financial institutions as well. Total bilateral aid for this year was set for £98.9 million (US$157 million), but it’s not known how much of that aid was already disbursed.

Sweden, Britain, and the European Union have previously stated that they would cut foreign aid to Uganda if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law. LGBT and other human rights advocates in Uganda argue that public statements like these are unhelpful because they have the opposite of their intended effect. They embolden Anti-Homosexuality Bill supporters to not only prove their contempt for gay people but also to prove their patriotism and “African-ness” against what they see as foreign (read: colonial) coercion.

AP Is Wrong: Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill Still Has The Death Penalty

The lead paragraphs in this Associated Press article states:

The Ugandan lawmaker who originally authored an anti-gay bill proposing death for some homosexual acts said Friday that a new version of the proposed legislation doesn’t contain the death penalty.

Parliamentarian David Bahati said the bill, which is expected to be voted on next month, had “moved away from the death penalty after considering all the issues that have been raised.”

“There is no death penalty,” he told The Associated Press.

And because its the AP, the lie that has been heard at least fifteen times around the world over the past three years is embarking on yet another world tour, first in the New York Times, Washington Post and Fox, and from there to local news outlets. LGBT outlets and blogs — all of which have no excuse for not knowing better — are picking it up, including Queerty and Pink News. Even Huffington Post has jumped on board to turn its erstwhile progressive pages over to Bahati’s publicist.

But despite these latest reports you’ve read — or the fifteen or  more before them — the death penalty has not been removed. That can only happen when the full Parliament decides to vote on the Legal and Parliamentary Committee’s recommendation to remove the death penalty from Clause 3.  And that will only stand the greatest chance of happening if the Legal and Parliamentary Committee actually recommends making that change — which its members claims was done but can’t show you the committee’s draft report because its a “secret.” Which should be a red flag the size of North Korea’s because the last time the Legal and Parliamentary Committee claimed it recommended removing the death penalty, it actually did no such thing.

What short memory spans everyone has. It was just last week when the BBC  — per its usual jumping-the-gun instinct — announced that the decision to drop the death penalty was a done deal. In case you’re counting, that’s at least the third time the BBC announced the death penalty’s demise, and its third announcement proved just as wrong as the earlier two. So when an unnamed source at the U.S. Embassy in Kampala confirmed to the Washington Blade that:

…the committee can only compile a report on the bill for recommendations to the bill, and can’t make changes to it. That means the panel can’t take out the death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality,” which media sources reported was removed.

… — which is what we’ve been saying — Queerty was over there wondering how the death penalty ever got “put back in.”

But as we’ve said repeatedly, it has never been removed. And we will never tell you that it has been removed until and unless, you know, it has been removed — which has never happened in the bill’s entire three year history. Although the bill’s supporters have done their best to try to convince you otherwise.

And by the intensity of the campaign to try to convince media outlets that it either has been dropped or will be dropped, I don’t believe it will go through Parliament without it. Maybe if they tell you the same lie for the seventeenth time, that will be the time you should believe it. But not me.

As we go forward in this process, please keep these links handy for future reference:

How a Private Member’s Bill Becomes Law In Uganda: When someone says the death penalty has been removed or any other change was made to the bill, remind yourself to ask at what stage in the process is the bill in?

Don’t Believe It Until You See It: News Reports Claim Uganda Drops Death Penalty From Anti-Gay Bill: And when someone says the death penalty has been removed or the bill was dropped, remind yourself of the many other times you’ve heard that story before.

And by the way, even if a miracle happens and the death penalty is removed at some point, there are still nineteen odious clauses of the bill, each of which, on their own, represents a serious threat to human rights in Uganda for gay and straight people alike:

Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows. There has been talk of removing the death penalty — which has not happened yet; it’s just talk — and replacing it with a life sentence. But can anyone seriously imaging that spending a lifetime in Uganda’s notorious Luzira prison is any better? Especially once your fellow prisoners learn that you were sent there for “aggravated homosexuality”?
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

American Jewish World Service Condemns Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill

And they see parallels between Uganda’s attempt to wipe out gay people from their country and another historical precedent:

Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), today issued the following statement about Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which may be voted upon by that country’s parliament in the coming days:

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill is an abhorrent violation of human rights against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and a grave threat to civil society in Uganda. Whenever basic human rights such as equal treatment under the law and the rights to safety, assembly, association, expression and privacy are denied, we are compelled to speak out.

The most tragic chapter of Jewish history provides a bitter lesson that the stripping away of human rights from specific minorities is often a precursor to the targeted destruction of oppressed people.

We stand in solidarity with Uganda’s LGBT community and with the defenders of human rights in Uganda, who work tirelessly to safeguard the rights and dignity of all.

Uganda Parliament Speaker suspends House sessions

The contentious House session dealing with the assignment of control over the nation’s oil resources to the government (without oversight) ended on Monday when the Speaker stomped out the door. Now she is suspending sessions:

The Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Kadaga Rebecca has suspended sittings of the House and directed the Parliament Committee on Rules Privileges and Discipline to review the behaviour of MPs in Tuesday’s Sitting.

In her address to Parliament November 28, the Speaker described the conduct exhibited by Members in yesterday’s prematurely adjourned House as unparliamentarily, unruly and disorderly. She said the behaviour exhibited by some MPs was beneath the dignity and honour expected of Honourable Members.

She has directed the Rules, Privileges and Discipline Committee to review video of the session and report back on Monday with recommendations for punishment of unruly members.

How a Private Member’s Bill Becomes Law In Uganda

Ugandan LGBT advcoate Kasha Jacqueline posted this helpful tutorial on her Facebook page. I took the liberty of changing the bullets to numbers so we can identify the stage where the Anti-Homosexuality Bill currently stands, which appears to be at B.5, in which the committee is preparing its final report for the full House.

THE PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA

 The Process of the Bill in Parliament

How a Bill becomes Law

1. PRIVATE MEMBER’S BILL. Article 79(1) of the constitutional provides that “parliament shall have the power to make the Laws on any matter for the peace, order, development and good governance of Uganda”. A bill is a draft of an Act of parliament and includes both a private member’s Bill and a Government Bill. A private member’s Bill is moved by a backbench MP.

A. Plenary

1. MP. Committee chairperson moves motion seeking leave (permission) to present private member’s Bill.
2. Provides proposed draft of the Bill.
3. MPs debate and vote on motion.
4. If the MPs reject the motion; the private member’s Bill is dropped.
5. If the motion is approved: printing and publication of the Bill is done by clerk to parliament.
6. Bill is published in the Gazette
7. Private member’s Bill is introduced for the first reading accompanied by certificate of financial implication.
8. Speakers refer Bill to appropriate committee.

B. Committee

1. Committee scrutinizes Bill
2. Calls responsible mover(s)
3. Calls various stakeholders and government in public hearings
4. Reviews relevant and related laws/documents
5. Writes report with proposed amendments to plenary

NOTE: The committee can only propose amendments and changes to the bill. It cannot make those changes directly. Those changes can only be made through the following steps:

C. Plenary

1. Mover moves and justifies motion for second Reading of the Bill
2. Committee chairperson presents report on the Bill
3. Minority Report is presented (if it exists )
4. MPs debate committee report on principles of the Bill
5. Parliament votes for second Reading of the Bill
6. Bill referred to the committee of the whole house

D. Committee of the Whole House

1. Committee of the whole house means a committee composed of the whole body MPs.
2. Chaired by the speaker /deputy speaker (referred to as chairperson)
3. Sits in the chamber.
4. Speakers leaves the chair, sits at the clerk’s Table
5. MPs approve causes, and schedules of the Bill.

E. Plenary

1. MP in charge of Bill asks plenary to resume
2. Reports outcome of committee of the whole house
3. Plenary votes for Third Reading of the Bill

F. Clerk’s office

1. Clerk’s office prepares copies for authentication and Assent of the president.
2. Copy sent to the president.

G. Presidents office

1. President assents to Act of parliament*
2. Act of parliament becomes Law of Uganda
3. Implementation starts on commencement date
4. Law is published in government Gazette

*president may reject to give assent

Constitution provides that the president shall within 30 days after a bill is presented to him/her either:-

• Assent to the bill
• Return the bill to parliament with a request that the bill or a particular provision of it be reconsidered by parliament; or
• Notify the speaker in writing about the decision

The bill may be reconsidered and then presented for the president’s approval. However it may become law without the president’s assent if he/she returns it to parliament two times. It should have the support of at least two-thirds of all MPs.

Where Are the Religious Leaders? Ctd.

I have two follow-ups to my post this morning. I was completely remiss in neglecting to recognize the heroic efforts of Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at the evangelical Grove City College in Pennsylvania, who has been an outspoken critic of not just the Anti-Homosexuality Bill itself, but of the events leading up to it going all the way back to that fateful conference in Kampala in March 2009. It was only a few years earlier that Dr. Throckmorton had been an advocate for the ex-gay movement, before his critical thinking got the better of him. I don’t know if he qualifies as a religious leader per se, but he is certainly a leader who is led by his faith.

Perhaps a more puzzling religious leader to come out against the anti-homosexuality bill is Solomon Male, a Ugandan pentecostal pastor who is as anti-gay as they come. Male, along with pastors Martin Ssempa and Robert Kayiira were recently found guilty of being part of a conspiracy to falsely accusing a rival pastor of homosexuality. In a post at The African Report, Male says this about Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill:

Religious leaders, members of the National Coalition Against Homosexuality and Sexual Abuses in Uganda (NCAHSAU), said the proposed law will not end homosexuality in the East African country. NCAHSAU director Solomon Male said the bill that has drawn worldwide condemnation was populist.

“The basis of our anti-homosexuality initiatives since 2006, which culminated in the formation of our organisation was to sensitise the public about the challenge and dangers of homosexuality and sexual abuses,” he said. “It led to some politicians coming up with a hurried populist, opportunistic and hypocritical bill against homosexuality, which is now before parliament.”

Male said their organisation was set up to fight for the rights of victims of homosexuality. He claimed many youths were being lured into homosexuality while at school and in churches. However, Male accused security agencies of covering up for prominent people who behind the activities. He accused MP David Bahati who originated the bill of riding on the popularity of their campaign to further his political interests.

“As the national campaign against homosexuality became popular, Honourable David Bahati and his team came up with the anti-homosexuality bill 2009,” Male said. “Although it may have been well intentioned, we feel that it will not achieve what many Ugandans think it will achieve. It is a waste of precious time, financial and other resources that should have been applied more productively elsewhere.”

He maintained that existing laws were sufficient to deal with people who force others into homosexuality.

“Our Penal Code has very good laws, sufficient to address homosexuality and abuse of children, which the proposed law is purportedly intended to address.”

Jeff Sharlet’s indispensable book, C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy includes this passage in which Male and Kyazze share their suspicions about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (pp. 152-153):

Kyazze and Pastor Male are nothing if not ambitious. Their only critique of the bill is that it is actually too soft on homosexuality. They see a clause forbidding the media from exposing victims of gay rape as evidence there’s a gay infiltrator within their ranks. Even (James Nsaba) Buturo the (former) minister of ethics and integrity and chairman of the Fellowship group from which the bill emerged, is suspect in their eyes. They don’t think he’s gay, but they wonder whether he’s protecting powerful homosexuals. Like many Ugandans, both pastors believe the bill’s timing has as much to do with a massive corruption inquiry that has brushed closer to the dictator than any other.

By no means do I place Warren Throckmorton on the same category as Solomon Male. But they are, as far as I can recall, the only two prominent Christian leaders who have spoken out recently against the bill. There are miles of room along the spectrum between the two men that any number of other pastors can chose from to speak out, and frankly, I don’t much care right today where they wish to place themselves along that spectrum. Just speak out. That’s all you have to do.

Uganda Parliament Descends Into Chaos Over Oil Bills

I’ve been telling you how contentious the Petroleum Bill’s are in Uganda’s Parliament. Daily Monitor has just reported:

Some have suggested that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill might be used as a diversion to the controversial oil bills, which empowers a single person in President Yoweri Museveni’s cabinet to negotiate and sign contracts for oil exploration, drilling, refining and transportation. The bills also provide virtually no oversight or transparency in the process, which is sure to cement Uganda’s reputation as eastern Africa’s most corrupt country. If Parliament does clear the two Petroleum Bills, then the Anti-Homosexuality Bill may become politically useful to many members of the government who will want to distract the public from the massive theft of oil wealth that is about to take place. This may explain why the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is next on the list.

Which means that Uganda’s oil policy can be summed up this way: yes, we’re going to steal your oil wealth — but look over there! Homosexuals!!!

Where Are The Religious Leaders?

With Uganda poised to pass what would become one of the most draconian anti-gay laws in the world, human rights advocates, LGBT activists, and diplomats from around the globe are lobbying members of the Ugandan government to set aside the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. But there is one set of voices that is conspicuously silent: church leaders. So far, the only religious voices to speak up about it are those who favor its passage, including Scott Lively and the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer. The Family “Research” Council’s Tony Perkins, while not addressing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill directly, praised Uganda over the weekend as “a modern example of a nation prospered by God.” (Perkins had previously lied about what the bill would do if enacted and lobbied Congress against a resolution condemning the bill.)

So far, those are among the few religious leaders speaking up about the bill, all of them supporting it directly or indirectly. And so far, major religious leaders against the bill have been conspicuous by their silence. The HRC called on them to speak up in a press release last week:

“American faith leaders know that calling for the death penalty – or even calling for imprisonment of – an entire community is not in line with Christian values,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “American Christian faith leaders with ties to Uganda, like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes, must reach out to their influential Ugandan friends to ensure that the human rights of Ugandans are not put up to a vote.”

American Christian faith leaders have been active in Uganda for decades and have significant ties to Ugandan political leaders and faith leaders. Such influential American faith leaders, including Rick Warren, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, and voices from the Trinity Broadcasting Network, have a moral obligation to urge their Ugandan friends and allies to condemn the bill. Many of these American faith leaders have shown a commitment to fighting the HIV/AIDs epidemic in Uganda and know passage of this bill would curtail these efforts. Public statements and private conversations by these American faith leaders, if they are done immediately, could save the lives of thousands of Ugandans.

Rick Warren last addressed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in late 2009, when he condemned the bill. Three years is an eternity in politics, and he has been silent since then. Silence will only mean that Scott Lively and Tony Perkins is speaking for them.

Anti-Homosexuality Bill Moved to Top of Uganda Parliament’s List

Today’s Order Paper (DOC: 45KB/3 pages) for Uganda’s Parliament shows the Anti-Homosexuality Bill moved to the top of the section titled “Notice of Business to Follow.”  When the anti-gay bill first appeared on the Order Paper last week, it was placed third behind a motion to urge the government to bail out a steel mill and the presentation and adoption of a report of an investigation of the energy sector. Those two items have now been bumped down a notch.

Today’s business is tied up over controversial clauses in two Petroleum Bills which are currently being considered in Parliament. Those bills’ opponents vow to hold a demonstration in Kampala over the overly broad powers that the legislation would grant to the Energy Minister, a presidential appointee, to grant and revoke oil exploration, extraction, refining and transport licenses and contracts. Opponents say the bills provide very little oversight or transparency for those activities, making the legislation, essentially, a mechanism for legalizing graft. Uganda has recently been named the most corrupt country in eastern Africa. If the oil bills become law or if the public demonstrations agains them become too noisy, some fear that Parliament may turn to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in order to create a public distraction.

U.S. State Dept. Envoy Meets With Ugandan Leaders on Anti-Homosexuality Bill

In Monday’s daily State Department briefing, the subject of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill was raised by a Washington Blade reporter. Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokesperson, said that Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson met with Ugandan leaders last weekend and raised concerns about the bill, which is expected to be debated in Parliament as early as this week:

“As we have regularly said, we call on the parliament of Uganda to look very carefully at this because Uganda’s own Human Rights Council has made clear that if this were to pass, it would put the country out of compliance with its own international human rights obligations,” Nuland said. “And so, (Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie) Carson had a chance to make that point again and our strong opposition to this, to the president, to the parliament and to key decision makers in Uganda.”

Nuland confirmed that the bill was passed out of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee last week, but was unable to confirm reports that the committee recommended the removal of the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” because the committee has refused to make the draft recommendations public.

“I don’t know that we have actually seen the version that passed committee,” Nuland said. “They’ve been a little bit close hold about this, partly because there’s been so much controversy in the international community. So our concern is about any criminalization of homosexuality, obviously.”

Last Friday, the BBC rushed to report that the death penalty had been removed from the bill. In fact, nobody knows what the committee has recommended because the committee has refused to release its report to the public. In further fact, if the committee did recommend removing the death penalty, that only means that the committee recommended its removal. It’s actual removal would only happen if the full Parliament votes to accept the committee’s recommendation, which hasn’t happened yet. So despite reports to the contrary, the death penalty has not been removed, and we don’t even know for sure whether the committee has even recommended its removal. The last time the committee claimed to have recommended its removal in 2011, it turned out that it only recommended a slight change to the bill to make the death penalty’s presence much less obvious.

Nuland refused to say whether Carson raised the possibility of cuts to American aid to Uganda if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law:

“I’m not going to get into any hypothetical situations,” Nuland said. “Our focus now is on raising awareness of the concerns within Uganda about this bill, so we don’t get to that stage.”

Asked by another reporter about whether a pledge to cut aid would be “a good, strong point to make” if the United States opposes the bill, Nuland said she won’t “make prospective points from the podium here about where we might go if this bill passes.”

The Blade has a full transcript of the exchange. Britain, Sweden, and the European Union have warned that the bill’s passage would place their aid to Uganda in jeopardy. LGBT advocates in Uganda caution that direct threats of cutting aid has in the past sparked backlashes against LGBT people there, and would almost certainly be counterproductive among Ugandan politicians. They’ve instead urged the kind of back-channel discussions which appear to be taking place now. Carson’s direct involvement is encouraging, since he is a more senior State Department diplomat than the local U.S. ambassador in Kampala. Carson has been engaged with senior Uganda officials over the Anti-Homosexuality Bill since it was first introduced in 2009.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition

The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009, as published in the official Uganda Gazette on September 25, 2009. (Click to download, PDF: 847KB/16 pages.)

This is our final installment of the clause-by-clause review of Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass it before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill had been the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which on November 23 announced that they were prepare to send the bill to the full House for debate and a final vote, possibly as early as Tuesday (Nov 27).

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

A couple of the clauses in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill are administrative:

15. Jurisdiction.
Save for aggravated homosexuality that shall be tried by the High Court, the magistrates court shall have jurisdiction to try the other offences under this Act.

19. Regulations.
The Minister may, by statutory instrument, make regulations generally for better carrying out the provisions of this Act.

These clauses look rather innocuous on first glance. Clause 15 sets out which courts will have jurisdiction over which portion of the bill. Uganda’s High Court hears the most serious cases, and Clause 1 gives it sole jurisdiction over “aggravated homosexuality” (Clause 3) which currently carries the death penalty under the proposed bill. Magistrate Courts generally sit below High Court in terms of the severity of criminal cases that they hear. As far as I know, it appears that Clause 15 is probably fairly typical given the kinds of penalties that would be under consideration.

But it’s in Clause 19 that things become quite alarming. Someone will be tasked to issue further regulations to ensure that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is enforced. And who is that Minister charged with that task? To find out, you will need to find the definition in Clause 1:

“Minister'” means the Minister responsible for ethics and integrity;

In the current regime, that would be Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo, a defrocked Catholic priest who last week led a group of armed guards in a raid of a hotel in Entebbe where a LGBT advocacy conference was taking place. He summarily ordered the arrest of LGBT advocate Kasha Jacqueline Nabageser, but Kasha slipped away and was able to avoid Lokodo’s thugs. The following June, he ordered another raid of an LGBT rights workshop. This time, four activists were detained until their lawyers showed up to remind police that no laws were broken. The next day, Lokodo announced that 38 NGO’s would be banned for acting as “channels through which monies are channeled to (homosexuals) to recruit.” If Lokodo could break up a meeting with no legal basis whatsoever, imagine the reign of terror he would engineer once he has the Anti-Homosexuality Bill with all of the opportunities for abuse it provides.

Lokodo’s predecessor, James Nsaba Buturo, also saw his office as enforcer-in-chief of Uganda’s particular brand of “ethics and integrity.” And he, like Lokodo, also saw himself as the nation’s pastor, writing lengthy op-eds in Ugandan newspapers intoning on the moral evils he saw plaguing the country. Before President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986 following a civil war, Buturo served in Milton Obote’s bloody regime as an enforcer who was adept at making Obote’s enemies disappear. In Museveni’s government, he wielded a softer touch, but was no less insistent in his goal of making gays disappear. While Buturo has apparently fallen out of favor with the Museveni government, having been forced to resign in early 2011, he set a pattern that Lokodo would emulate. In December 2010, Buturo banned the screening of a documentary film which depicted, in part, the work of LGBT human rights workers.

One senses that should the Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law, the Ministry of Ethics and Integrity could very well change its name to the Ugandan Inquisition. And why not? There are many parallels. An early draft of the bill included a paragraph in its accompanying memorandum extolling the virtues of ex-gay therapy. That paragraph was dropped when the bill was introduced into Parliament in 2009, but that didn’t stop the bill’s supporters to trot out a supposedly ex-gay person as a modern-day converso. And the witch-hunts which would be unleashed by Clause 14, the ban on all deviation from the Ugandan Inquisition via Clause 13, the startling ease with which someone could be put to death in Clause 3 with the High Court being put in charge of the auto-da-fé — these are the measures that Tomás de Torquemada himself would appreciate.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.