Box Turtle Bulletin

The tale of Tyler and Bethany Deaton

The International House of Prayer is a church in Kansas City which hosts a 24 hours per day, seven days per week prayer service. They have a decidedly dominionist bent and are affiliated with some of the more radical (and definitely anti-gay) elements of conservative Christianity including Lou Engle , Michael Brown, the Brownsville Revival, and the Kansas City Prophets movement.

One consistent element that seems to be present in all of those who move in this circle is a hands-on opposition to homosexuality. Lou Engel held one of his The Call rallies to support Proposition 8 and his son was part of an effort to have “spiritual confrontation” in the Castro in San Francisco. He also is a stealth supporter of Uganda’s “Kill-the-gays” bill. Michael Brown is a voice in Charlotte, NC, not only in opposition to equality but apparently to the peaceful assembly of gay people. He annually leads a group of red-shirted protesters to engage in “spiritual warfare” through prayer against Gay Pride events. And Brown had, for several years, been a regular presenter at the Love Won Out ex-gay conferences.

Mike Bickle, the founder of the International House of Prayer, is also complicit in the effort to execute gay people in Uganda. Earlier this year, he played a video at his church which lauded one of the bill’s principle supporters. (Talk to Action)

But today, Friday April 27th, 2012, IHOP is slated, according to a news release from ChristianNewsWire, to publicly screen a movie-length video featuring a Ugandan religious leader, Julius Peter Oyet, who has stated that “even animals are wiser than homosexuals.” and has openly called for practicing homosexuals to be hunted down and imprisoned or even executed.

Oyet even claims (see video at end of story) to have played a central role in a pending Ugandan bill, the internationally condemned Anti Homosexuality Bill, designed to make that happen; in a 2010 interview with French journalist Dominic Mesmin, Oyet stated that he had served on a committee that picked MP David Bahati to introduce the bill in Uganda’s parliament and had a special government commission to rally public support behind the bill, which has been internationally denounced – including by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hlllary Clinton.

The House of Prayer movement, being dominionist in ideology, sees homosexuality as a battleground in their war to take over the world for their religion — one in which the forces of good and evil are clearly defined and one in which God’s power is particularly evident. Take, for example, the opening “testimony” from the International House of Prayer, Atlanta:

Delivered of Homosexuality, 10/3/10

For as long as I can remember, I have lived as a homosexual. I didn’t grow up in a Christian family. I was the youngest child and my siblings were very rebellious. When I was in 7th grade, I made the decision that I was gay and realized that the world around me really accepted gay people. I got saved two years ago, but I walked away from the Lord this past summer. I was pretty much living for myself and I knew that I was hurting God’s heart by living a homosexual lifestyle. During the Awakening Services, God really romanced my heart and gave me revelation that He loves me no matter what. Last week, I was completely delivered from homosexuality! Praise the Lord!

It’s important to note that the key word here is “delivered”. To those who espouse IHOP theology, homosexuality has a demonic element, influence or oppression.

As part of their outreach efforts, the International House of Prayer established IHOPU, the International House of Prayer University, which equips Bible students with a hardcore dominionist view of Christianity. And it is without doubt that the theological teaching of this group heavily stress deliverance from homosexuality and that this is not only God’s intent for a person so tempted, but to do otherwise would be a victory for Satan.

Meanwhile, in Texas, young Tyler Deaton was attending Southwest University, a private Methodist college. He was charismatic and engaging and had earned the respect of fellow students by struggling with and overcoming Satan’s influences. (kansascity.com)

One of his group’s stark positions on Scripture was that homosexuality was wrong. Deaton’s stance against it weighed heavily because members said he had “struggled with being gay.”

“He struggled with it, but he overcame it,” a member of his group at Southwestern said. “It was a victory.”

Over the course of his studies Deaton gathered around him a group of students that were drawn to his personality. He also became intrigued with the International House of Prayer and began trips to Kansas City with his entourage to participate in their worship. Eventually he and several in his fellowship of like-minded students moved to Kansas City to enroll in IHOPU.

Among Deaton’s crowd that migrated to IHOP was a girl named Bethany. She had been home-schooled and was quiet and into service. Like the others, Bethany became part of IHOP, attending a six-month internship at IHOPU in 2009 before going on to become a registered nurse working in a local hospital.

And Tyler began to seek to increase his influence at the church (IHOP statement)

After Deaton graduated from IHOPU in May 2012 he began to show interest in our [Forerunner Christian Fellowship] small groups. That summer our FCF small groups came under a new director, who formed a temporary, think-tank-type discussion group made up of volunteers, who met to discuss ideas on how to improve small groups. Deaton attended this group, though he made it very clear to our small groups director that his independent Bible study group would not be connected in any way. On one occasion in October 2012 Deaton facilitated a breakout discussion of seven or eight people.

Deaton was listed as a divisional coordinator in IHOP’s preliminary small groups info packet. (A “mistake” that has now been “corrected”).

It was a joyous time in their group and with friends back in Texas when Tyler and Bethany became engaged this past May. Perhaps finding in this engagement a sense that he was becoming the “real” him, the one God sees, Tyler took to his blog to say.

In the last blog, we discussed how to arrive at true personality, namely by not defining oneself prematurely and by allowing all qualities to go through refinement through interaction with Jesus over a longer period of time. The desire to find “true personality” and not be stifled by premature definitions is a great and good enough reason to not define yourself or those around you prematurely by certain qualities or traits. It is a great reason to sign up for a journey of transformation instead of a premature self definition. However, there is in my estimation, a still more glorious reason why we are to aim to not box ourselves or others in with, “I am this or I am not that” but are instead to seek a long process of near limitless expansion. That reason is simple but breathtaking: we are to be imitators of God.

The young couple married in August but it was not a lengthy marriage. On October 30th, Bethany was discovered in the back of her van with a bag over her head and by her side a bottle of pills, and a suicide note.

My name is Bethany Deaton. I chose this evil thing. I did it because I wouldn’t be a real person and what is the point of living if it is too late for that?

I wish I had chosen differently a long time ago. I knew it all and refused to listen. Maybe Jesus will still save me.

Everyone was saddened by the tragedy of a newlywed, only 27, being so distraught that she took her own life. But this sadness took on a new depth on the 9th of this month.

That is the day that a member of Deaton’s prayer group and an IHOPU student, confessed that he had killed Bethany. And had done so at Tyler’s instruction. (ABC)

Micah Moore, 23, last week confessed to killing Deaton, the wife of the community’s religious leader, Tyler Deaton, 26. Moore told police that he and others in the group’s shared home had sexually assaulted Bethany Deaton, and that he had been instructed by Tyler to kill her, according to police records.

“Moore stated that Tyler Deaton told him to kill Bethany Deaton, saying he knew Micah had it in him to do it,” a police report by detectives read. “Moore said he told Tyler Deaton he had killed Bethany after it was done.”

Moore told detectives that he had filmed the alleged sexual assaults on his iPad, and that the group was afraid Bethany would tell her therapist about the assaults. Moore also said there were poems written about the alleged sexual assaults.

Court documents revealed that they had given Bethany the prescription anti-psychotic drug Seroquel, which has the side-effect of somnolence, before engaging in sexual assault.

The sexual activity was not limited to Bethany.

The Deatons and Moore lived in a house with at least four other men in Kansas City, three of whom told police that they all had sexual relationships with Tyler Deaton. A fourth said he felt “groomed” to fit into the group of men, and that Tyler Deaton had once gotten into bed with him and held him.

“He stated that he realized now that Tyler was attempting to make him a member of their sexual group,” the detective’s report said.

Another roommate said Tyler Deaton had told him that the sexual activity “was part of a religious experience,” according to the report.

So far, only Moore has been arrested. Whether it turns out that Bethany’s murder was at Tyler’s command or that Moore was delusional, the verification of the sexual activity may prove to be a black eye on the International House of Prayer and has invited scrutiny and revealed additional concerns.

And I can’t help but note that yet again we are reminded that the sex drive is powerful and that if we do not direct it into healthy relationships but instead seek to dam it up, it can result in twisted harmful behavior. And Bethany’s murder might have been avoided had Tyler Deaton not been convinced that he was required to struggle against his orientation.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law

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

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

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.

As we’ve been demonstrating throughout this series, the scope of the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill is mind-boggling. Only a couple of clauses ostensibly target gay people — although those clauses’ overly-broad wording endangers virtually everyone because the ease with which someone could be convicted over an accusation of “touching” someone on “any part of the body” “with anything else” (a finger? a foot? a ten foot pole?) “through anything” with the imagined intent of “committing homosexuality.” That loose definition can land someone in prison for the rest of their life or, depending on the whims of the prosecutor, to the gallows. And we’ve also demonstrated a host of clauses which explicitly target straight people for a whole host of offenses they can commit (or be accused of committing) when they come in contact with gay people.

For those of us living outside of Uganda, it might be tempting to count our lucky stars that we don’t live there if the bill passes. That temptation may be stronger for Ugandan expatriates living abroad or Ugandan residents who are out of country. Surely they will be safe, won’t they?

16. Extra- Territorial Jurisdiction.
This Act shall apply to offenses committed outside Uganda where –

(a) a person who, while being a citizen of or permanently residing in Uganda, commits an act outside Uganda, which act would constitute an offence under this Act had it been committed in Uganda; or

(b) the offence was committed partly outside and or partly in Uganda.

17. Extradition.
A person charged with an offence under this Act shall be liable to extradition under the existing extradition laws.

Incredible, isn’t it? And notice how these two clauses apply to “offence(s) under this Act.” This bill seeks to impose penalties for any Ugandan citizen or resident who has a fling abroad (or, who merely touches” someone on “any part of the body” “with anything else” “through anything”) — a lifetime in prison, namely, or a death sentence if they really want to get serious about it.

But not just that. The long arm of Ugandan law seeks to go after any health care workers who are also Ugandan citizens or legal residents — and remember, legal residents would include missionaries and NGO employees from other countries — who happen to “aid and abet” homosexuality by helping out gay people while abroad. Or who decide to advocate on behalf of gay people while abroad. Or attend a same-sex wedding abroad. Or who rents out their home abroad to a gay couple while they are working in Uganda.

It might be a fun drinking game to come up with the craziest way someone abroad could run afoul of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Well, I guess it might be fun if the bill’s supporters weren’t so deadly serious. These two clauses, instead, show us that they aren’t content to keep their anti-gay witch hunts confined to Uganda’s boarders in a way that targets gay and straight people alike. They also want to spread it to the four corners of the world to wherever Ugandans can be found, and to every nation that sends workers to Uganda to help its people deal with the government’s massive failures in providing food, health care, clean drinking water, and simple sanitation.

Recommendations from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in May, 2011 (Click to download, PDF: 57KB/6 pages.)

When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported the bill back to Parliamentin May 2011, it recommended that these two clauses be deleted, saying “The practical enforcement and implementation of the provision will be difficult.” But the Eighth Parliament expired before it could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, it was brought back with the original October 2009 language intact, including these two clauses which remain in the bill today.

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.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, November 21

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; White Party, Miami, FL; NOLA Masquerade, New Orleans, LA; 

Michael Sandy

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Michael Sandy’s Killers Sentenced. 2008. On October, 5, 2006, Michael Sandy, 29, was lured to a secluded beach in the New York area by three others who he met in an online chat room. When he arrived, he was pulled from his car and beaten. In trying to escape, he was chased onto a busy freeway where he was struck by an SUV. One of his attackers pulled him to the side of the road and went through his pockets before fleeing. Sandy was taken to the hospital, where he remained on life support for five days without regaining consciousness. His family removed him from life support one day before his 29th birthday.

The four men who were accused of planning the attack were arrested on hate crime charges. The police investigation showed that Sandy had been selected to be robbed because he was gay, believing a gay man would hesitate to resist the attack or report it to the police.

Michael’s death brought to the fore an ongoing debate over the intersection of race and sexuality in regards to community reactions to hate crimes. Los Angeles commentatorer Jasmyne Cannick noted,

Michael Sandy could have been anyone of us, and yet he was us. He was black. He was a black male and he was a black gay male. If Michael Sandy would have been heterosexual, would that have brought out the Reverend Jesse Jacksons and the Reverend Al Sharptons a black America? Would that have made it okay for the NAACP to get involved and for other black civil right groups to take notice? I’m beginning to think so.

…When Matthew Shepard was murdered, the world stopped. Why? Because whites across this country made that white gay boy’s death an issue for the media, politicians and community groups. Do we care enough to do the same? So again I ask, where’s the outrage?

Gary Timmins, 17, pleaded guilty to attempted robbery with a hate crime enhancement. As part of his plea agreement, he testified against his friends in exchange for a four-year prison sentence. John Fox, 20, who posed as a gay man in the internet chat room, was charged with manslaughter and attempted robbery as hate crimes and was sentenced to between 13 and 21 years in prison. Anthony Fortunato, 21, tried to avoid the hate crime enhancement by claiming he was gay himself. He was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime and was sentenced to 7 to 21 years. Ilya Shurov, 21, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempted robbery as hate crimes and was sentenced to 17½ years. Before sentencing, Michael’s father, Zeke Sandy rose to address the court. “These hate crimes become a cancer; it’s a disease,” he said. “I don’t know why we have to go butcher one another because we don’t like what they are, who they are.”

If you know of something that belongs on the Agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.

Arizona man files paperwork to start reversing marriage ban

I love Arizona politics. Half the stories I read, I have to check that I haven’t wandered onto The Onion’s satire page. (East Valley Tribune)

Tanner Pritts has formed Arizona Advocates for Marriage Equality. But he also has filed the necessary paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office to allow him to start raising money for a 2014 campaign.

The initiative drive, if successful, would put the issue back on the ballot just six years after Arizonans voted by a 56-44 margin to define marriage in the state constitution as solely between one man and one woman.

…Pritts said he is a registered Republican and voted in 2008 for John McCain and just this year for Mitt Romney, both of whom are on record as opposing same-sex marriage. Pritts said, though, he is hoping to convince the GOP to alter its stance on the issue.

Okay, so Pritts is a bit naive.

But it’s Arizona. Anything could happen.

(ps. this should be a Jim Burroway story, but he’s enjoying family time where every third block is not a TimeWarner WiFi hotspot)

Oh fine, Mayor Sanders, make me all teary-eyed again

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders leaves office on December 3rd and the U-T conducted an exit interview. It concluded with this:

Q: What about marriage equality for same-sex couples? [Sanders got national attention when he opposed many fellow Republicans who were backing a 2008 state ballot measure banning same-sex marriage. Sanders said his daughter Lisa, a lesbian, and gay members of his staff in committed relationships should have the same marriage rights as he and his wife. He later testified in the Perry vs. Schwarzenegger lawsuit that led to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturning Prop. 8.]

A: I still get emotional on this one. I think it’s the most important thing I did.

Q: Really, the most important thing you did?

A: Yeah. Equality isn’t something you can quantify. But it’s something that has to be there. I think it’s coming right away. The Supreme Court’s going to take up [the appeal of Prop. 8 supporters] and I think they’re going to let [gay marriage] stand in California because they don’t want to deal with it. The voters are going for it. Young people, that is not even in their concern list. We’re all taught from the day you start school, equality’s very important. And you look at the civil rights movements – this is exactly what this is. And so playing a little part in it, it’s been good.

Sanders is going off to head the San Diego Chamber of Commerce where I’m certain he will continue to be an advocate for equality.

We only ask for the rights because we’ve already accepted the responsibilities.

This morning I read Chris Geidner’s great article on how we beat back our opposition’s propaganda to sweep five marriage equality battles in the last election. This bit leapt out at me:

Commitment trumps rights, a point made in prior research by Freedom to Marry as well: “Leading with commitment will show the middle that gay people want to join the institution of marriage, not change it.”

We talk a lot about marriage rights, but every one of us in a committed relationship has a commitment story to tell — to lead with, in fact. Use the comments below to craft the one that belongs to you.

I told mine once before when Maggie Gallagher demonstrated her blithe ignorance of what commitment means by saying same-sex partners don’t need employer health benefits: “when both adults are working (as in egalitarian relationships), both partners tend to sustain their own health insurance.” Here it is:

In 2011, my partner Will fractured his wrist. He was back in school as a full-time student, with a full-time job that didn’t offer benefits. I hadn’t realized that schools don’t offer the same health care that I got a couple decades ago, so I hadn’t put him on my employer’s insurance. He ended up with a temporary cast, along with an appointment a couple weeks later and a warning they might have to rebreak his wrist before setting it properly.

We sorted it out, but I was angry for long afterward, and really I was furious with myself. Will didn’t think so, but I had failed him, and as we recounted the ordeal to his parents I could barely look them in the eye. Will is my responsibility, and I am his. His medical bills are my medical bills. If our circumstance changed, and I needed help, Will would quit school and take on three jobs if my health required it. So God help me, when it was over I didn’t fucking say to him, “Sorry, babe, but in an egalitarian relationship both partners sustain their own health insurance.”  No, I got him on my plan because that’s the way relationships work.

Will is my responsibility, and I am his. That’s the short version of the story. Actually that ought to be the first and last line every time I tell it.

People don’t marry just to take care of their kids. They marry to be responsible for each other: Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour / For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.

It astonishes me how many of our religious opponents are so quick to forget their own Bible when they claim marriage is all about the kids. Marriage does come with legal rights, but the rights we care most about the ones that help us live up to our responsibilities: the right to be in that hospital room, to provide medical care, to make decisions when your partner cannot, to ensure he can support himself if you are taken, to give your employer an honest reason when you take a personal day for his sake, to live in the same room, the same home, the same country without fearing discrimination or separation.

Because of federal tax penalties, putting Will on my insurance amounts to a $3500 annual pay cut compared to what my married colleagues give up. I can see why someone might think I’m merely greedy when I point that out, concerned for nothing but what I can get from marriage equality. But those rights and benefits for married couples — available with kids or without — were put in place for a reason: to help spouses care for each other. And in a rare show of unanimity the entire political spectrum considers this very long tradition a very good thing. Which brings me to my single-sentence argument for marriage equality, the one I’ll come back to again and again.

We only ask for the rights because we’ve already accepted the responsibilities.

I’ve given you my story. Now tell me yours.

How To Survive Thanksgiving

How To Survive Thanksgiving:  The Romance of AIDS Activist Peter Staley 

“Go hang your dreams on the hangin’ tree
Your dreams of love that could never be
Hang your faded dreams on the hangin’ tree”
Marty Robbins, “The Hanging Tree”

Peter Staley, August, 1991, at Fire Island

In the summer of 1985, Rock Hudson and Peter Staley both happened to be in Europe.  Rock was lying, and dying, in a hospital in France, receiving an experimental treatment for AIDS, at the tail end of his closeted gay life.  Peter, 24 years old and already a successful bond trader on Wall Street was also closeted, back in his real life, back in New York, but that summer he was walking along the canals of Amsterdam, holding hands and falling in love for the first time with a beautiful Dutch boy also named Peter.  In late July, the story of Rock’s declining health due to AIDS would break as Doris Day aired Rock’s last television appearance with her, showing a stumbling, confused, very ill actor; in August, People magazine ran a story about Rock, quoting sympathetic friends who talked openly, for the first time, about Rock being gay.  It’s safe to say that before Rock Hudson died the words “gay” and “AIDS” were not often on the national radar; it’s safe to say that no shadow hung over Peter’s romance that summer in Amsterdam.  Arriving back in New York, however, everything was about to change.

That October, two months after Rock’s story broke in the U.S., he was dead, and a couple weeks later, in early November of 1985, Peter was at the airport to pick up his very own Danny Zuko, his summer boyfriend from Amsterdam who still remembers it as if it were yesterday: “he was at the airport, and he was in a suit . . . and there was a guy next to him who was also in a uniform, he was a chauffeur, he was picking me up in a stretch limo, and with champagne in our hands we were driving over the Brooklyn Bridge – that was my first impression of New York.”  For a few weeks their romance on 11 Maiden Lane, a quiet, narrow street a few blocks north of Wall Street had a storybook quality to it; the two Peters explored New York, went out to restaurants, and even bought tickets for Orlando, Florida and Disney World.  One Monday night, the two settled in on the couch to watch a much-hyped NBC movie called “An Early Frost;” the show was so controversial its ratings were second to none that night, beating the Broncos-49ers game on ABC and Cagney and Lacey on CBS.  In the movie the young, handsome main character played by Aidan Quinn goes to the doctor for a rattling, painful cough and night sweats and is diagnosed with AIDS; he is later seen coming out to his parents as both gay and HIV positive.  Even while airing the most watched show of the evening, eclipsing Monday night football, NBC lost half a million dollars; advertisers refused to have their products associated with gay characters and the spectre of AIDS.

If Rock Hudson’s death had been foreshadowing, “An Early Frost” played the role of Cassandra in Peter Staley’s life as his boyfriend leaned his head on his shoulder that Monday night, watching the program with increasing fear.  “AIDS was, like, maybe on page 8 of the paper in Holland, only occasionally, it was to me, you know, like science fiction . . . I saw that person [in the movie] coughing, and I said to Peter, because, you know, he kept coughing, and I had been saying something to him those few days, and he said ‘oh you know, maybe it’s the air conditioning, it’ll go away’ but it didn’t go away, and so watching that program that night, I was like, ‘you are coughing, you have night sweats too!'”  They went to the doctor, a few tests were run, and they were told they would have to call for results the following week while in Florida.  Standing on Main Street in Disney World, Peter used a payphone to call the doctor and learned he had AIDS.

Very little, in the fall and winter of 1985, was conclusive about AIDS; so little research had been done at that point that rumors flew constantly, especially outside of the gay community.  Where I lived, people believed you could get AIDS from a kiss or a shared drink or a toilet seat.  I was 11 years old that winter and remember my father, a smirk on his face, saying he talked to a guy on an airplane who “really got it,” who bragged that he didn’t touch anything in public anymore, that he walked around with a tissue and used it as a barrier when he opened doors, flushed public toilets, touched hand rails.  “AIDS! It’s everywhere!  Those fags are spreading it everywhere.  You just never know.”  My mother, ten years later, when I told her I was considering moving to San Francisco after college jumped off the couch and began pacing the living room, wringing her hands, her brows furrowed.  “It’s in the water! It’s in the water!”  I didn’t know what she meant – did she think the occasional earthquake would send the city into the bay?  “No, AIDS, it’s in the water.  You can’t go to San Francisco!”

In the Orlando airport for his return flight to New York, Peter happened to walk by a magazine with a cover story about AIDS.  “It detailed how the virus integrated itself into your cells and that knowledge was what I found the most frightening, that the virus that I had coursing through me was genetically integrating itself into my immune system.  It was very obvious from the article that a cure was something that was decades away.”  Two weeks later, at Thanksgiving, Peter and his boyfriend went to his parents’ home in rural Pennsylvania and Peter came out, as both gay and HIV positive.  The very next night, Peter’s father insisted that Peter and his boyfriend sleep in their bedroom while he and his wife moved to the guest room which only had two single beds.  There were tears that night but, somehow, there wasn’t despair, not yet.  Peter was still in love.  His parents still loved him.  Life back on Wall Street was good, even if he was closeted, even if he still treated his boyfriend like a friend when his work buddies would come over on a Friday night to sit on the floor and laugh and smoke pot.

To really live you must almost die
And it happened just that way with me
They took the gold and set me free
And I walked away from the hangin’ tree
I walked away from the hangin’ tree
And my own true love, she walked with me

Time went by, slowly.  There were days when Peter could barely get out of bed; there were days when he felt fine.  Over the next year both Peters were trying to find a way to be together — there was a chance JP Morgan could relocate him to Amsterdam; there was a chance his boyfriend could come over as a student.  Nothing panned out.  Months went by; finally, it was summer.  Peter Launy, living in Amsterdam, still terrified of AIDS, not seeing a way to be together, eventually felt he had to break things off.  “Everything changed with AIDS.  I got really scared.  I was 25.  Breaking up with someone who you love is so, you know, so very hard . . .  I broke up in September, of ’86, and then in October he came to visit me, and I was so mean, I made him stay in separate beds.  It was so painful for me, everything in me wanted to tell him ‘stay here, I love you!’ but, well . . . [beginning to cry] well . . . I had to let him go . . . I loved him very much, but I couldn’t deal with it . . . the whole thing.  We were so far apart.”  Peter Staley was suddenly single, closeted, and living with AIDS, with few people to talk to.  At the office it was a commonly expressed sentiment that “those who take it up the butt deserve to die.”

Six months later, in March of 1987, around 7:30 a.m. on his way in to work, Peter saw flyers for a group called ACT UP, the “AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power.”  “I saw the demonstration on the news that night, and I saw the FDA commissioner responding directly with some stated new policies to speed up the approval process, and so it seemed like an immediate and effective demonstration that got a quick reply from the government and I thought, that was real power being displayed, so I was there for the next meeting.”  A year later, Peter’s CD4 count plummeted to 100, well below the point where opportunistic disease often sets in.  Peter went on permanent disability, telling his boss that same day that he was gay and dying of AIDS.  AZT, the only drug available at the time, seemed to be killing him, along with thousands of others.  In March of 1987, there was no national organized effort by the government to do anything about it.

From then on, and for the rest of his life, Peter has been a full time activist; the next 5 years were recently portrayed in David France’s documentary, “How To Survive A Plague.”  Watching the film several times this fall I was struck by two particular moments, the first when Larry Kramer, in the middle of a contentious, angry ACT UP meeting so heated that there was complete disarray, screams out

“Plague!

Plague!

We are in the middle of a fucking plague!”

The whole room falls silent and suddenly, at Larry’s goading, there is again a momentary consensus, a common drive, a genuine sense of purpose.  Larry, the author of Faggots, of The Normal Heart, the founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and then the founder of ACT UP, is the penultimate leader of the first era of gay activism, the era when we were literally dying in the streets, the era when society looked away, the era defined more by our absence than our presence.  In the middle of our very own private, very gay holocaust, Larry was there, screaming to be heard.  His screams, sometime in the late 80s / early 90s were finally heard.

According to Peter, however, once their voices had been heard it was time to stop screaming.  When ACT UP noisily entered St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and interrupted Sunday mass in December of 1989, Peter told me that “the whole media coverage for an entire week was about our tactics and not about the issues . . . Larry Kramer thinks it was our greatest moment, he thinks we’re more powerful if everybody fears us, and my feeling was, we were at our most powerful when we had the country on our side.”  A fissure had been slowly working its way through the members of ACT UP, both in New York and nationally, a tension that had usually been resolved in favor of Kramer’s approach – stand up and scream, always, as loudly as possible.  Reflecting on that approach in 2009, Kramer said that today “we’re not angry enough.  Anger is what makes activism work and I don’t see any anger now, or fear.  The triumphs that we had with ACT UP getting all the drugs has been dissipated because ACT UP self-destructed and everybody went out and acted as if AIDS had never happened.”  Shortly after the St. Patrick’s protest, the “Treatment and Data” group that Staley and Mark Harrington led within ACT UP began to plan an exit strategy, a way to work with, not against, the opposition.  “We were doing some very intense inside work negotiating with all these big power players and frequently getting our way.  That insider work was an anathema to the traditional social activists within ACT UP who really only believed in civil disobedience and demonstrating against the powers that be and didn’t buy into the idea of sitting down and negotiating with your adversaries in that way.”

The second bone chilling, stirring call to action in France’s documentary wasn’t angry and it wasn’t directed at AIDS activists; it wasn’t directed at gay people at all.  Instead it was Peter Staley, standing before the 1990 International AIDS Conference in San Francisco, police officers in riot gear partially hidden behind him to prevent other ACT UP members from noisily disrupting the conference as they had done the year before.   Watching that moment in 1990 when Peter stood behind the podium at the AIDS conference, an invited insider instead of a disruptive outsider, speaking carefully, eloquently making an appeal to the conference member’s better angels, you begin to feel that Larry’s screams have been superseded.  When the entire conference stands up at his request and joins him in an ACT UP protest chant, the feeling is overwhelming — finally, not only is the opposition listening, they are joining in.  As Staley tells the audience that “someday there will be a people alive on this earth who will hear the story, that once there was a terrible disease and that a brave group of people stood up and fought, and in some cases died, so that others might live and be free” he is already looking to a future when the fight will be won.

A few weeks ago I spoke with Chris Staley, Peter’s oldest brother, and he left me with this story:  “Peter had recently come out of the closet, he had quit his job on Wall Street, and we were outside Philadelphia with our parents at a party, I think it was just after Thanksgiving, you know, at one of our parents’ friend’s houses.  Everyone was in coat and tie or a dress and there was this moment, Peter and I were talking to a group of people, maybe 6 or 7 people, all friends of our parents.  We were standing there, holding drinks in a little circle and someone asked Peter what he was doing, if he was still on Wall Street, and again, these were our parents’ friends, Peter was in his 20s, these were conservative Republicans in Pennsylvania we were talking to.  Peter had just quit his job so he could have easily just nodded yes but he didn’t.  He said ‘No, I’m not on Wall Street anymore, I’m working with ACT UP.’  Someone asked what ACT UP was and he told them, ‘well, it means AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, I’m working to try and change government policy for people like myself afflicted with HIV.’

At this point, Chris had to stop talking, overcome with tears.

Finally,

“I was floored.   Two of the people standing there literally turned around and walked away.  This was back in the 1980s, when people didn’t want to be in the same room as someone with AIDS, and Peter had the guts to say ‘I’m working with ACT UP.’  It’s so easy to lose sight of what people went through then.  Peter came out swinging, but it was always tempered with a calm focus.”

            Peter Staley eagerly joined and helped lead the fiercest battle the gay community has ever fought, fighting for access to more and better drugs, fighting for society to pay attention to the thousands, and eventually millions, dying of AIDS.  Yet, even at the height of that battle he was focused on what would happen after the war.  Peter was a romantic; his approach to activism, once he was strong enough to leave ACT UP, was to take the opposition on a date, to win them over with his earnest smile, to speak in poetry and bring his audience to its feet.  Bob Rafsky, another prominent activist in ACT UP who followed Peter to form TAG, the “Treatment and Action Group,” wrote a piece for the New York Times, in 1992 — “A Better Life for Having Acted Up” — wistfully and painfully remembering the “false hopes” of the previous five years he spent with the AIDS activist group ACT UP.  “It’s always possible we’ll win. The drug, or drugs, that will turn AIDS into a chronic illness like diabetes will finally be discovered. We’ll have years to study the lessons of the fight against the epidemic. As in the old country-western song, the hanging tree will become our tree of life.  But it’s not likely, at least not in time for me. My T4 cells have started to drop again, as I feared, and now I have to begin chemotherapy for Kaposi’s sarcoma, an AIDS-related cancer.”   Bob died one year later, his battle with AIDS eloquently portrayed in France’s documentary.

What sustained the Greek folk hero Odysseus through 10 years of war and 10 years lost at sea was the prospect of someday rekindling his romance with his wife Penelope; of that, he never lost sight.  For that promise alone, he never stopped giving thanks.

That’s when I knew that the hangin’ tree
Was a tree of life, new life for me
A tree of hope, new hope for me
A tree of love, new love for me

A new nation for the National Organization for Marriage?

After their stunning defeat in this month’s elections, the National Organization for Marriage seems to be determined to increase the irony factor in their name. Being an organization that is opposed to marriage, it’s already amusing that their name claims the opposite. But now they appear to have abandoned “National” as well.

Lately NOM is obsessed not with American marriage but with the laws in France. Their last half dozen blog postings have been:

LSN: 200K-500K Rally Against Gay Marriage in France

Tens of Thousands Join Pro-Marriage Marches Across France

French Cardinal: Gay Marriage Would Be “Marriage of a Few Imposed on All”

Dare we hope that Brian Brown is moving to Paris?

New South Wales cross-party work for marriage

From SMH

NSW is one step closer to a vote on legalising same-sex marriage, MPs from across the political spectrum giving official notice of new legislation.
A cross-party working group of MPs from the Coalition, Labor, the Greens and an independent have been working on a bill that would allow gay and lesbian couples to marry in this state, after the failure of three federal same-sex marriage bills earlier this year.
Coalition and Labor MPs will be allowed a conscience vote on the bill when it comes before Parliament next year.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone

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

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

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.

We’ve already talked about Clause 14 before in this series. We described how the mandatory reporting clause is a threat to doctors, lawyers, social workers, pastors, and anyone else who “aids and abets” gay people (in conjunction with Clause 7) and how the law is a particular danger to landlords, friends and family members of gay people (in conjunction with Clause 11). But after having looked at the previous thirteen clauses in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, with all of the crimes and all of the penalties that those clauses provide, let’s look at Clause 14 again, except this time I want to highlight something which hasn’t garnered that much attention:

14. Failure to disclose the offence.
A person in authority, who being aware of the commission of any offence under this Act, omits to report the offence to the relevant authorities within twenty-four hours of having first had that knowledge, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty currency points or imprisonment not exceeding three years.

(A currency point is is defined in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as 20,000 Ugandan shillings, or about US$7.65, making the maximum fine about US$1,900. Uganda’s per capita income is only about $450.)

Did you catch it? Look again: “A person in authority, who being aware of the commission of any offence under this Act…”

Discussions about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill often talk about this clause as requiring anyone who knows someone who is gay being required to report that person to the police. But that’s not what this clause says. Well, it does say that, but it also says so much more.

What it says is that if anyone learns that a doctor is treating gay people, they are required to report that doctor to police within twenty-four hours for “aiding and abetting” homosexuality in violation of Clause 7, because that is an “offence under this Act.”

If someone learns of a landlord or a hotel owner renting to gay people, then that person is required to report the landlord or hotel owner to police within twenty-four hours for violating Clause 11, another “offence under this Act.” If someone learns of someone providing a safe house to gay people on the run, then that person is required to report the sanctuary-provider to police within twenty-four hours for also violating Clause 11.

If someone discovers that someone else witnessed a same-sex wedding taking place, then that person is required to report the witness to the police within twenty-four hours for violating Clause 12. If someone learns of a person making donation to a gay-rights group, then that person is required to report the donor to police within twenty-four hours for violating Clause 13. If someone learns of anyone who says that gay rights should be respected, then that person is required to report the rights advocate to police within twenty-four hours, also for violating Clause 13.

And that’s in addition to the case where someone learns that somebody else touched someone else’s “any part of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act which “does not necessarily culminate in intercourse,” that that person is required to report that “toucher” to police for violating Clauses 1 and 2. The extend of this reporting requirement is nearly endless.

And if anyone should fail to report any of these things — and much more — within twenty-four hours of learning about it, that person could be thrown in prison for three years.

Recommendations from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in May, 2011 (Click to download, PDF: 57KB/6 pages.)

When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported back to Parliament in May 2011, it recommended that Clause 14 be deleted, saying “The offence will create absurdities and the provision will be too hard to implement.” But the Eighth Parliament expired before it could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, it was brought back with the original October 2009 language intact, including Clause 14 with all its absurdities. As of today, Clause 14 is still officially part of the bill.

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.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, November 20

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Transgender Day of Remembrance: Everywhere. Today is the day set aside to remember those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia and to bring attention to the brutal violence endured by the transgender community. TDoR began in reaction to the brutal murder of Rita Hester, who was killed on November 28, 1998. Her murder resulted in the creation of the Remembering Our Dead web site and a candlelight vigil in 1999. Observances for the Transgender Day of Rememberance typically consist of the reading of the names of those who have died because of their gender identity, expression, presentation or perception of gender variance. Observances are being held in cities all around the world. Click here to find an observance near you.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
California Supreme Court Restores Teacher’s Credentials: 1969. In 1967, California’s state Board of Education revoked two lifetime teaching diplomas for Marc. S. Morrison, who had taught high school in the Lowell Joint School District for a “limited, noncriminal, physical relationship which Morrison described as being homosexual in nature” with a fellow teacher. After the Los Angeles Superior Court upheld the Board’s decision, Morrison appealed to the California State Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that an individual cannot be denied his teaching credentials unless evidence shows that homosexual behavior affected his fitness as an instructor.

John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner Fined $200: 1998. One of the biggest steps toward gay equality, the end of America’s sodomy laws, began on November 17, 1998 when a 911 operator received a call about “a black male going crazy with a gun” at John Geddes Larence’s home in the Houston suburbs. Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded to the call and entered Lawrence’s unlocked apartment. There, they purportedly found Lawrence and Tyron Garner engaging in consensual sex. What they actually found is a matter of contention. Lawrence and Garner weren’t lovers — in fact, that false report had been phoned in by Garner’s actual lover, Robert Eubanks, who suspected Garner and Lawrence of having an affair. One deputy wrote in his report that he saw Garner on the bed “on all fours” on the receiving end of anal sex with Lawrence, and that both were completely naked.  Another said that he saw them on the floor, and that Garner wasn’t naked. He wasn’t sure whether he saw them having anal sex or oral sex — two completely different acts which would be very difficult to confuse. “The black guy was giving him head or they was [sic] doing each other from behind. I don’t remember.”

Lawrence and Garner were arrested, held in jail overnight, and charged with violating Section 21.06 of the Texas Penal Code, otherwise known as the Texas “Homosexual Conduct” law, which prohibited engaging “in deviant sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex.” They both denied having sex that night, but their lawyers, sensing that the case might have the makings of a landmark case, advised them to plead no contest, neither admitting guilt nor protesting innocence. Because they didn’t actually have sex, the lawyers didn’t want to make the case about their innocence. After all, it’s hard to argue that two consenting adults of the same sex have the right to have sexual relations in the privacy of their home when the two adults in question hadn’t actually had sex.  And so on November 20, 1998, Lawrence and Garner were convicted of the Class C misdemeanor by a Justice of the Peace in Houston, and were fined $200 each.

And with that, landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas then began to make its way through the court system:  to the Texas Criminal Court (which rejected the defense’s request to dismiss the charges), a three-judge panel of the Texas 14th Court of Appeals (which ruled the law unconstitutional), and the full nine-judge panel of the 14th Court of Appeals (which reversed the three-judge panel). The appeals then reached the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which serves as Texas’s Supreme Court for criminal cases. That court refused to hear the case, which left the lower court’s decision standing. Lawrence vs. Texas was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, struck down the Texas anti-sodomy law, along with similar laws in twelve other states.

In 2011, Dale Carpenter published Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, in which he reconstructed the events leading up to the arrest, initial trial, and the building of a landmark civil rights case, revealing the ironic fact that the case about two men having sex was almost certainly based on a case in which neither man had ever had sex with the other, before that fateful night or since.

If you know of something that belongs on the Agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

As always, please consider this your open thread for the day.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Silencing of the Lambs

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

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, but Kadaga has demanded that the committee report back to the House with its recommendations by November 20.

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.

The memorandum which serves as the preamble to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill states that one bill’s aims is to prohibit “the promotion or recognition of such sexual relations in public institutions and other places through or with the support of any Government entity in Uganda or any non governmental organization inside or outside the country.” That aim is fulfilled in Clause 13:

13. Promotion of homosexuality.
(1) A person who –

(a) participates in production, procuring, marketing, broadcasting, disseminating, publishing pornographic materials for purposes of promoting homosexuality;

(b) funds or sponsors homosexuality or other related activities;

(c) offers premises and other related fixed or movable assets for purposes of homosexuality or promoting homosexuality;

(d) uses electronic devices which include internet, films, mobile phones for purposes of homosexuality or promoting homosexuality and;

(e) who acts as an accomplice or attempts to promote or in any way abets homosexuality and related practices;

commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of five thousand currency points or imprisonment of a minimum of five years and a maximum of seven years or both fine and imprisonment.

(2) Where the offender is a corporate body or a business or an association or a non-governmental organization, on conviction its certificate of registration shall be cancelled and the director or proprietor or promoter shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.

(A currency point is is defined in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as 20,000 Ugandan shillings, or about US$7.65, making the maximum fine about US$38,250. Uganda’s per capita income is only about $450.)

This bill would thoroughly outlaw any and all advocacy on gay rights in Uganda. Subclause 1.a speaks of “pornographic materials,” implying a limited scope of the bill, but in reality, even the most innocuous depictions or descriptions of LGBT people have been condemned as “pornographic.” The remaining clauses have no similar pretense of restraint. Sublcause 1.b prohibits all funding for LGBT advocacy, 1.c prohibits any property or assets from being used for LGBT advocacy, and 1.d prohibits all electronic media, including the Internet, emails, SMS text messages, YouTube videos, and anything else you can think of that can be used to argue for LGBT rights. This clause bans everything: blog posts, Facebook status updates, even a 140-character Tweet can land the Tweeter in prison for up to seven years.

Businesses, non-profits and NGO’s aren’t exempt either; the law shuts them down and imprisons their directors or owners for seven years.

And in case the bill’s authors forgot anything, Subclause 1.e is there as a catch-all for any other possible avenues for advocating on behalf of gay people. This covers any kind of advocacy including, potentially, legal defense for anyone charged under this bill, and even any future parliamentary debate over whether sections of this bill should be amended or repealed. In fact, this clause is redundant with Clause 7 which prohibits “Aiding and Abetting” homosexuality (which the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee recommended deleting in favor of this clause). Which means that all of the dangers that Clause 7 poses to lawyers, health care workers, counsellors, pastors — even beauticians (is making a gay person attractive “aiding and abetting” homosexuality?) — apply to this clause as well. In a human rights forum discussing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill held at Makarere University in 2009, law professor Sylvia Tamale describes just some of the dangers Clause 13 poses:

Clause 13 which attempts to outlaw the “Promotion of Homosexuality” is very problematic as it introduces widespread censorship and undermines fundamental freedoms such as the rights to free speech, expression, association and assembly.  Under this provision an unscrupulous person aspiring to unseat a member of parliament can easily send the incumbent MP unsolicited material via e-mail or text messaging, implicating the latter as one “promoting homosexuality.”  After being framed in that way, it will be very difficult for the victim to shake free of the “stigma.”  Secondly, by criminalizing the “funding and sponsoring of homosexuality and related activities,” the bill deals a major blow to Uganda’s public health policies and efforts.  Take for example, the Most At Risk Populations’ Initiative (MARPI) introduced by the Ministry of Health in 2008, which targets specific populations in a comprehensive manner to curb the HIV/AIDS scourge.   If this bill becomes law, health practitioners as well as those that have put money into this exemplary initiative will automatically be liable to imprisonment for seven years!  The clause further undermines civil society activities by threatening the fundamental rights of NGOs and the use of intimidating tactics to shackle their directors and managers.

In addition to the likelihood that Clause 13 could be abused for criminal or political purposes, the provisions in Clause 13 violate Uganda’s constitution (PDF: 460KB/192 pages), which under Chapter 4, Article 29, (Pages 41-42) include:

29. Protection of freedom of conscience, expression, movement, religion, assembly and association.
(1) Every person shall have the right to—

(a) freedom of speech and expression which shall include freedom of the press and other media;

(b) freedom of thought, conscience and belief which shall include academic freedom in institutions of learning;

(c) freedom to practise any religion and manifest such practice which shall include the right to belong to and participate in the practices of any religious body or organisation in a manner consistent with this Constitution;

(d) freedom to assemble and to demonstrate together with others peacefully and unarmed and to petition; and

(e) freedom of association which shall include the freedom to form and join associations or unions, including trade unions and political and other civic organisations.

Already over the past year, Ugandan authorities have been behaving as though this clause was already in effect. In February of this year, police raided an LGBT rights conference in Entebbe on the orders of Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo, a defrocked Catholic priest. Lokodo  summarily declared the meeting of LGBT leaders illegal despite the absense of a law making it so. He ordered another raid of an LGBT rights workshop in June. 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.”

The adoption of this clause would make a mockery of Uganda’s constitution, although Lokodo has already demonstrated that he needs neither a law nor constitutional authority to trample on citizens conscience freedoms. Nevertheless, the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee recommended retaining Clause 13 in its entirety in the closing days of the Eighth Parliament, and it remained as part of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill when it was reintroduced into the Ninth Parliament.

In the film The Silence of the Lambs, the evil Hannibal Lecter asked detective Clarice Starling what her most painful memory was. She replied with a story about living on a relative’s farm near a slaughterhouse where she tried unsuccessfully to rescue one of the lambs. She was haunted by the screaming the lambs made as they were being slaughtered. Lecter later asks Starling, “Tell me, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?” This clause, as part of a bill designed to legislate LGBT people out of existence, is designed to ensure that their screams won’t be heard.

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.

The Daily Agenda for Monday, November 19

TODAY IN HISTORY:
American Council of Christian Churches Calls AIDS “God’s Wrath”: 1989. Peter Steinfels wrote in the New York Times about a gathering earlier in November of U.S. Catholic Bishops in Baltimore that had met to hammer out a document responding to the AIDS crisis. The bishops decided overwhelmingly to reject the theological proposition that AIDS was in any way a punishment from God, a position held by one in four Americans, according to a recent poll. J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, had published 68 statements on AIDS from 45 different religious groups in the United States, Canada and Great Britain, and found “a remarkable” across both liberal and conservative religious groups recognizing that AIDS was not just a gay problem, and “that special ministries should be established to serve AIDS victims, their families and friends, and that the civil rights of homosexuals or of those with the AIDS virus should be protected.” But, The Times learned, that consensus wasn’t unanimous:

The Bible repeatedly describes God as employing all kinds of terrors, natural and human, to punish those who disobey his commands. These biblical accounts naturally governed the reaction of the American Council of Christian Churches, a fundamentalist group that recently expressed dismay at the consensus discovered by Mr. Melton. The council, which claims to represent about two million ”Bible Christians,” promptly went on record upholding the idea that AIDS is God’s wrath visited on homosexuals and drug addicts, although for their ultimate benefit if they turn to Jesus.

The Ramrod, about 1978.

Gay Bar Shooting Spree Kills 2, Injures 6: 1980. Ronald Crumpley, 38, had been seen cruising the streets of New York’s Greenwich Village in  his father’s stolen blue Cadillac. Dressed in a dark wool topcoat, print shirt, a vest and a black fedora sporting a red feather he fired three shots from an automatic handgun at Sim’s Deli shortly before 11:00 p.m., wounding at least three people and shattering the front plate glass window. Minutes later, he drove to Christopher Street and stopped in front of two gay bars, Ramrod and Sneakers, which were next door to each other. Dann Hedges, 30, was in Sneakers and watched as the horror unfolded. “The man in the Cadillac waited about two or three minutes, drove around the block, returned, stepped out of the car calmly, walked up to the curb and and shot a man standing on the curb waiting for a cab. The man fell to the ground, then he shot another guy who ran around the corner. He started spraying both bars through the plate-glass windows. Then he got back into the car and drove off.” Hedges scribbled the car’s license plate number on a dollar bill and gave it to police.

John Ganrecki, 27, was one of six who were injured. “I heard a noise up front. … It sounded like a string if firecrackers. People were falling on the floor screaming and yelling. My friend, Fred, said ‘Hit the floor! Hit the floor!’ … I was already on the flor, looking at my hand, and it was bleeding. It was like something in Al Capone; there was a row of bullet holes across the glass behind the bar.” Ronald Greenberg, 52, also survived the shooting. “It was a massacre, a bloodbath.”

After Crumpley drove off, he stopped again at 10th and Greenwich and fired eight more shots at another group of men. This time he missed, and as police cars approach he sped away. As many as 15 police cars chased Crumpley’s car to Broadway and West 10th Street, where Crumpley abandoned the car. Officers found him trying to pull himself up underneath a van’s undercarriage. Two were killed: Vernon Koenig, an organist at Greenwich Village’s St. Joseph’s church, died on the operating table at St. Vincent’s Hospital, and Jorg Wenz, Ramrod’s 21-year-old doorman, died soon after surgery. Rene Malute, 23, was in intensive care, and five others were admitted in stable condition.

Crumpley, a former Transit Authority policeman and son of a minister, was arrested after a police chase through Village streets. He charged with murder, attempted murder, and possession of illegal weapons. Police found four weapons: A .357 Magnu, a .45 caliber automatic pistol, a 9mm automatic pistol, and the Uzi. Crumpley told police that he attacked the bars and the deli bcause he hated homosexuals. “I want to kill them all,” he reportedly told police. “They’re no good. They ruin everything.” Lt. John Yuknes said, “He had a dislike for homosexuals, a rather intense one I would say, under the circumstances.”

The Ramrod’s doors during the candlelight vigil.

The next day, about a thousand people joined a solemn candlelight procession to mourn those killed in the shooting. Arthur Bennett, one of those marching, told reporters, “Everybody’s been almost waiting for something like this. It’s not because we wanted it to happen but because we feared it. There have been a lot of people down here getting beat up.”

During Crumpley’s trail, the prosecution presented 35 witnesses, and the defense five. At issue was Crumpley’s mental state at the time of the shooting. Prosecutors contended the shootings were “deliberate” and conscious.” Crumpley’s psychiatrist testified that he was “paranoid.” Crumpley himself took the stand and described gay people s “agents of the devil” who were following him continuously for three years and were trying to convert him. The jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Wards Island. In 2001, a judge turned down Crumpleys’s request to be moved to a less restrictive psychiatric facility.

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Britain Suspends All Foreign Aid To Uganda

Not because Uganda may be poised to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill soon, but because corruption in Uganda is so rampant that the UK has no idea where its money has gone.

Britain has suspended all direct aid to the Ugandan government with immediate effect, the international development secretary, Justine Greening, announced on Friday.

Aid to the Ugandan prime minister’s office was frozen in August, following allegations of fraud, while an independent forensic audit was ordered. Greening has now suspended other bilateral aid, which is spent through Uganda‘s financial systems, known as direct financial aid.

…”Britain has frozen all UK aid spent through the Ugandan government. This is a result of initial evidence emerging from our ongoing forensic audit of the office of the prime minister, which indicates aid money may have been misused,” said DfID. “We are extremely concerned by these preliminary findings and we will assess the decision further when we have considered the full findings of the report. Unless the government of Uganda can show that UK taxpayers’ money is going towards helping the poorest people lift themselves out of poverty, this aid will remain frozen and we will expect repayment and administrative and criminal sanctions.”

Auditors discovered that joint foreign aid funding from Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden to the tune of â‚¬12 million  (£10 million, US$15 million) have mysteriously shown up in the private bank accounts of officials in prime minister Patrick Amama Mbabazi’s office. Those countries and Britain suspended its aid to the Prime Minister’s office in August, and Britain has now expanded that freeze to include the entire Ugandan government. Britain was due to provide £11.1 million (US$17.7 million) in direct aid between now and the end of March. Total bilateral aid for the year was set for £98.9 million (US$157 million), but it’s not clear how much of that bilateral aid has already been spent.

ADF Attorney Arrested on Child Pornography Charges

This is Lisa Biron, a Manchester, New Hampshire lawyer who was arrested and charged by the FBI for possession of child pornography. She was arrested by the FBI while she was in Manchester’s district courtroom answering district level charges of child porn. The feds charged her with transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, possession of child pornography and five counts of sexual exploitation of children. She allegedly took an underage teenage girl to Canada, and convinced her to be filmed while participating in sexual activity. After she was arrested by Manchester police, she was released on bail under several conditions, and she promptly broke nearly all of them — including placing another ad on Craigslist, and sending threatening text messages to the person who had informed the police on her. Police have learned that there are other teens who have been given drugs and encouraged to engage in sexual activity.

The kicker?

Biron is associated with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group of lawyers who, according to their website, are committed to keeping “the door open for the spread of the Gospel” by advocating for “religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” In Concord, she worked with the ADF in defending a Pentecostal Church on Mountain Road in its tax fight against the city.

She recently served on the board of directors at Mount Zion Christian Schools in Manchester, according to the school’s headmaster.

On Biron’s Facebook page, which was taken down in recent weeks, she had listed the Bible as her favorite book.

Alliance Defending Freedom is the new name for the Alliance Defense Fund, the outfit that is defending California’s Proposition 8 in Federal Court. The ADF sent out a celebratory message last December when Nigeria’s Senate passed a draconian anti-gay measure to impose a fourteen year prison sentence on anyone entering a same-sex marriage and a ten year sentence for pro-LGBT advocacy.