Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyDecember 9th, 2010
Rachel Maddow is continuing her coverage of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill tonight. She’s done a great job of keeping the story in the public eye, but she’s still missing one thing:
The bill would kill gays and would kill their friends, family, or co-workers who didn’t rat them out to the government. It would be impossible to be a gay person’s friend and not be subject to the death penalty.
I pointed this out in the video below, and it bears repeating. In fact, I’ll ask you this favor:
Post the link to this video on Rachel’s Facebook page. Email it to her, too. If enough people do this, it’s bound to get her attention.
Here’s the direct link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fuEsRJp2nU
Thanks.
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JR
December 9th, 2010
I was absolutely shouting at the television last night as I watched it. I know she had limited time and he was making it very difficult to make any headway, but letting him away with that was sloppy. A quick reading of the (very simply written) bill would have made this very clear.
beachewtoy75
December 9th, 2010
Any else notice how he refused to say the words, “execution” or “death penalty”?
People keep calling him things like idiot and stupid, but no…. he’s VERY smart and that’s why we should be worried.
But, to be fair, is this the exact same bill that Tisiani refers to? I thought it died months ago and this was just a new version of it.
Jim Burroway
December 9th, 2010
As we have been consistently reporting on Box Turtle Bulletin, the bill has not died. Other media outlets have been careless in their reporting. This is the very same bill that was introduced October 2009, and has been sitting in Parliamentary committee since about December of last year.
There have been numerous false reports that the bill has been killed. It hasn’t been. There have also been numerous false reports that the death penalty portion has been modified or removed. It hasn’t. It’s been very frustratiing to see the mainstream media fall for these diversions.
Richard W. Fitch
December 9th, 2010
Bombarding Rachel at this point is rather futile. According to another source the interview was all taped Wed. afternoon. Bahati was scheduled to fly back to Uganda this AM. Unless MSNBC sets up a feed from Kampala, there is little hope that the MP will make any further responses to Rachel.
Rob Tisinai
December 9th, 2010
Not futile at all. The point here is that even Rachel Maddow still hasn’t pointed out the full harshness of the bill. She may not be able to question Bahati about it now, but she can still get the word out in her commentary (or the next-day follow-up she does after so many of these interviews). And that’s what we really need.
Don
December 9th, 2010
To Rob Tisinai, you recommend readers contact Rachel Maddow by emailing her. I am at a loss to find her email address; I see no link to such an address in BTB’s pages. Can you provide a link?
It is unfortunate that Rachel’s address is not easily available: I would have contacted her before her interview with David Bahati. I would have pointed out to her tha Bahati speaks an untruth when he claims that “homosexuality is a sin.” This lie has been thoroughly discussed by the late historian-linguist John Boswell in his book “Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality” (1980) where he examined the original Hebrew text of the Book of Leviticus, and found the word “toevah” used to describe same-sex physical association in verse Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination.”
In his book Boswell discusses fully in Chapter 4 “The Hebrew word ‘toevah’ translated in English ‘abomination’ does not usually signify something intrinsically evil like rape or theft, but something which is ritually unclean for Jews, like eating pork…” He explains:”It is used throughout the Old Testament to designate those Jewish sins which involve ethnic contamination or idolatry and very frequently occurs as part of the stock phrase ‘toevah ha-goyim,’ ‘the uncleanness of the Gentiles’…” Read more at p.100 (op.cit.)
What this all means is David Bahati has based his Anti-Homosexuality Bill on his belief that homosexuality is a sin against God’s law. So the punishments outlined in Bahati’s Bill are not justified because homosexuality is not a crime against God’s law. In fact Lev. 18:22 is part of a code of laws (known as the Holiness Code, Chapters 17-26) inserted in Moses’ Book of Leviticus by a rabbi 1,000 years after Moses died, to control behavior of Jews!
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