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 lobbyApril 1st, 2014
Uganda’s Inter-Religious Council, a coalition of religious denominations, organized a ceremony of prayer and thanksgiving yesterday at the Kololo Independence Grounds, the nationally-revered site where Uganda’s independence was declared in 1962. Religious and political leaders gathered to honor President Yoweri Museveni for signing the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law despite widespread international condemnation. Buzzfeed’s J. Lester Feder was there and described the carnival atmosphere at Kololo:
Fire jugglers, acrobats, and schoolchildren performed at a five-hour ceremony in the Ugandan capital on Monday called to celebrate the country’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Speakers paid tribute to President Yoweri Museveni, the official guest of honor, and linked Uganda’s fight against homosexuality with shedding its colonial past in an event that had the feeling of a campaign rally.
“Today, we come here again [to celebrate] sovereignty and freedom … [and] to take charge of our destiny,” said David Bahati, the lawmaker who sponsored the bill, noting that the event was taking place at the Kololo Independence Grounds, the parade grounds where Ugandan independence was granted in 1962. “The citizens of Uganda are with you, Mr. President. The religious and cultural leaders are with you, Mr. President. The members of parliament and the nation is behind you.”
Sheik Shaban Mubajje, Mufti of Uganda, spoke on behalf of the Inter-Religious Council in offering prayers of thanksgiving for the Anti-Homosexuality Act, while complaining that foreign donors have cut US$3.5 million in aid to the group that had been earmarked its HIV/AIDS programs. HIV/AIDS providers and legal experts have warned that the overly broad wording of the Anti-Homosexuality Act’s “aiding and abetting” clause would, at best, have a chilling effect on the delivery HIV/AIDS services to LGBT people, and, at worst, could be interpreted as criminalizing it. Other religious leaders offering thanksgiving prayers included Roman Catholic Archbishop Cyprian Lwanga, Anglican Archbishop Stanley Ntagali, and evangelical pastor Simon Peter Emiau. Ahead of the celebration, Pastor Martin Ssempa, of “eat-da-poo-poo” fame and staunch supporter of the new law, led a march of supporters from Makarere University to Kololo.
Museveni charged that Western countries were “attacking our culture, which is the bedrock of our survival,” and promised to support a domestic fund to replace lost foreign dollars for HIV/AIDS.
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John
April 1st, 2014
Ask their christianist supporters to donate. I do not want my money going to these fucks.
SharonB
April 1st, 2014
Whelp, let’s check back in a year and find out how much their society is benefiting from their new found [self] righteousness.
Rob in San Diego
April 1st, 2014
Meanwhile next door in Kenya lawmakers are poised to make polygamy legal for men to have multiple wives. Hmm, now I thought that polygamy was a slippery slope from marriage equality…
Richard Rush
April 1st, 2014
Every nation needs to find something to be proud of, and then celebrate it. And what they find tells the rest of the world a lot about their nation.
FYonug
April 1st, 2014
The thing about polygamy is that, for every man who has three wives, two men are doomed never to be able to find a wife to marry.
On the other hand, every same-sex marriage between men means that two more straight men can find a wife.
Same-sex marriage between men is a salvation for straight men in countries that allow polygamy.
Soren456
April 1st, 2014
Pardon me if I just sit back and laugh at them. It’s all I can do.
They are “shedding their colonial past” and they charge that western countries are “attacking our culture, which is the bedrock of our survival.”
And yet . . . every damned one of them is garbed in western clothing—suits and ties and hats; the religious contingent is purely western, with a sprinkle of middle eastern; the crowd is T-shirted and sneakered.
Not an indigenous shaman among them; just the merest hint of native clothing; nothing printed or spoken in an indigenous language.
Even the self-righteous pomposity is western.
Steve
April 1st, 2014
Never mind that their entire religion, homophobia and legal system is a western import.
Paul
April 1st, 2014
I think we would be to mad to think that God who created man and woman made a mistake. It should not be a blanket generalization of western world not all persons from this region supports homosexuality. A simple question to those proponents “would you have been born had your parents been same sex? Lets use our minds well as having been created in God’s Image and hence not expected to behave worse than animals as never has it been Known that any animal misses the right opening and goes for the one for passing out waste! Lets appreciate God for what we are.
FYoung
April 1st, 2014
Hi Paul, it’s nice to know that you read Box Turtle Bulletin. I encourage you to you read the stories and comments with an open mind so that you’ll eventually become educated about homosexuality and gender.
So few Africans have access or are even receptive to truthful information about sexual orientation and gender.
But, this is a pretty good place for you to become educated, if you’re humble and honest enough to know that you know nothing about homosexuality but falsehoods, provided you are receptive and respectful enough to learn from people who know.
Most Africans have access only to disinformation propagated by ignorant homophobes. If you’re not LGB yourself, a sex therapist or a sexologist, and you don’t have intimate LGB friends, it’s impossible for you to know anything about homosexuality.
Timothy Kincaid
April 1st, 2014
Soren and Steve,
Yes, it’s in Western garb conducted in English, and in the pomp of English ceremony and the trappings of imported Christianity, all to celebrate that unlike the West, these Africans will persecute their own people.
The primary purpose of the whole nonsense is to give the middle finger to the nations that keep them afloat.
It all comes across like a childish tantrum:
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, pay attention to me. I hate you! Mommy!! I hate you! Pay attention, Mommy! I hate you!”
Ben In Oakland
April 1st, 2014
Paul,
“I think we would be to mad to think that God who created man and woman made a mistake.’ No one here– except, ironically, YOU– is claiming that god made a mistake. Whether you wish to believe it or not, gay people are born, not chosen, not made, not abused. If you don’t want to believe that– and that is born out by science, medicine, the testimony of millions of gay people, the Mormon church, and the catholic Church– then you are choosing willful ignorance.
“A simple question to those proponents “would you have been born had your parents been same sex?” Paul, if you have ever had sex for any reason other than with the express intention of procreation, you have just invalidated your own argument about what sex is for.
And Paul, your mention of anal sex indicates a good portion of where your fascination lies. You might want to look up prurient interest, and ask yourself why anal sex is the first place you go, and why you have absolutely no interest in learning about the people you condemn.
Actually, Paul, didn’t jesus say something about judging others? If you haven’t thought that that’s what your doing, I’m here to inform you that’s exactly what you are doing.
If you persist in all of these things– wilfull ignorance, moral hypocrisy, and prurient interest– then we will be unable to help you. Ad by help you, I mean educate you– factually, morally, and personally.
There is simply no reason to waste a single electron further on you.
Lord_Byron
April 2nd, 2014
If the pope were serious about change he would defrock Cyprian Lwanga
JCF
April 2nd, 2014
Jesus wept.
Hunter
April 2nd, 2014
I really wish there were some way to completely isolate Uganda — and Nigeria, and any other country that favors these kinds of laws. And for those who might object because withdrawing aid, restricting trade, and so forth, would hurt “the people,” let me point out that “the people” elected these governments. Let them enjoy the consequences.
MattNYC
April 2nd, 2014
@Soren456
“Even the self-righteous pomposity is western.”
Brilliant!
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