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 lobbyClause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.
November 18th, 2012
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 bill’s memorandum, which serves as a prologue, gives its first objective as “provid(ing) for marriage in Uganda as that contracted only between a man and a woman.” It’s odd, then, that it waits until Clause 12 before it finally gets around to making it a criminal offense:
12. Same sex marriage.
A person who purports to contract a marriage with another person of the same sex commits the offence of homosexuality and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.
In more than half of the states of the U.S., same-sex marriage is banned, as it is in most other parts of the world. Where it is banned, nearly every other jurisdiction is satisfied to simply make such an arrangement a legal impossibility. But it is an exceptionally rare country (is there another one?) that goes so far as turning marriage into a criminal offense, let alone one such as Uganda that carries a penalty of a lifetime in prison. And yet, that is exactly what this bill would do. Any Ugandan who presents another person of the same sex as a spouse has broken a law so severe that the individual would be cast for the rest of his or her life into a Ugandan prison.
But not only that, it would appear possible that with the clause beginning with “a person who purports to contract a marriage…” might endanger any foreign married visitor who enters Uganda, either as a business person or a tourist, who mentions his or her same-sex spouse to anyone in Uganda.
Recommendations from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in May, 2011 (Click to download, PDF: 57KB/6 pages.)
Incredibly, when the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported back to Parliament in May 2011, it decided that Clause 12 didn’t go far enough. They recommended the following:
Clause 12 is amended by inserting a new sub-clause (2) as follows-
“(2) A person or institution commits an offence if that person or institution conducts a marriage ceremony between persons of the same sex and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment to a maximum of three years for individuals or cancellation of licence for an institution”.
Justification
To prohibit celebration of same sex marriages
The justification is telling: anyone who wants to celebrate with the happy couple is also breaking the law. Celebrations will not be permitted in Uganda. And neither is religious freedom, at least not for those religions which affirm the equality of LGBT people in marriage. The committee however failed to notice that the prohibition runs counter to Uganda’s constitution (PDF: 460KB/192 pages), which under Chapter 4, Article 29, (Page 42) includes the following:
(1) Every person shall have the right to—
…(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;
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.
Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.
November 18th, 2012
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 clauses that we’ve examined so far in this series ostensibly target gay people, but already it is clear that the (possibly) unintended consequences of the bill’s breathtaking scope would also make heterosexuals vulnerable through false accusations of homosexual behavior, particularly in a country where corruption is endemic and there are scores to settle. Now we turn our attention to the clauses which target heterosexuals directly. Take Clause 11, for instance:
11. Brothels.
(1) A person who keeps a house, room, set of rooms or place of any kind for the purposes of homosexuality commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.2) A person being the owner or occupier of premises or having or acting or assisting in the management or control of the premises, induces or knowingly suffers any man or woman to resort to or be upon such premises for the purpose of being unlawfully and carnally known by any man or woman of the same sex whether such carnal knowledge is intended to be with any particular man or woman generally, commits a felony and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for five years.
This clause’s title claims to target brothels, ordinarily understood as houses of ill-repute, places of prostitution. But look more closely at the subclauses: they suggest nothing of the kind. If the clause was intended to target prostitution, you’d think it would actually mention at least a few of the key characteristics of the profession: making money from sex, charging money for sex, arranging or accommodating for sex-for-pay, or anything else that one might associate with running a brothel.
Look at the subclauses again: anyone who allows anyone to conduct an act of “carnal knowledge” on their premises is in danger of being imprisoned for ether five or seven years, depending on how the police and prosecution decide to press charges. That’s it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re running a sexually-oriented business or not. Homeowners, landlords, hotel owners, hostel operators, or just someone offering guest accommodations to gay visitors can find themselves in trouble with the law. In the worst possible scenario, this clause could also be used to prosecute those who provide safe houses for gay Ugandans who are in hiding for their own safety.
If the goal of this bill is to drive all LGBT Ugandans out of the country, this clause alone would be one way to do it. After all, if it becomes impossible to find a place to live because the property owner could be jailed if authorities found out you were gay, where could you go? Back home to your family? Think again:
7. Aiding and abating (sic) homosexuality
A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage in acts of homosexuality commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.
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.)
The key to understanding Clause 14 is to notice that it invokes the phrase “a person of authority” in describing who has the legal requirement to report gay people to police. Clause 1 provides the definition of authority to be used in interpreting Clause 14. That definition is:
“authority” means having power and control over other people because of your knowledge and official position; and shall include a person who exercises religious. political, economic or social authority;
Again, it’s the definition’s broadness which invites trouble. Because of the “social authority” invested by Ugandan society in family ties, relatives fall under the requirement to report their loved ones to police within twenty-four hours of discovering they were gay. As Makarere University Law Professor Sylvia Tamale pointed out during a public debate on the bill in 2009:
The bill requires family members to “spy” on one another. This provision obviously does not strengthen the family unit in the manner that Hon. Bahati claims his bill wants to do, but rather promotes the breaking up of the family. This provision further threatens relationships beyond family members. What do I mean? If a gay person talks to his priest or his doctor in confidence, seeking advice, the bill requires that such person breaches their trust and confidentiality with the gay individual and immediately hands them over to the police within 24 hours. Failure to do so draws the risk of arrest to themselves. Or a mother who is trying to come to terms with her child’s sexual orientation may be dragged to police cells for not turning in her child to the authorities. The same fate would befall teachers, priests, local councilors, counselors, doctors, landlords, elders, employers, MPs, lawyers, etc.
She also points out that this clause opens up all of those groups to potential abuse, blackmail and extortion if they fail to report gay people to police. Logic would have it that if family members could be blackmailed, then landlords and hotel owners could also fall prey. Pay up, or we’ll report you along with the gay people you’re harboring.
The Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a Ugandan human rights group, also explained that this clause, in particular, would violate internationally-accepted practices of many professions which operate under the doctrine of Confidentiality (PDF: 344KB/17 pages, see page 8):
Professional practice in all professions is guided by professional ethics and codes of conduct clearly specified and that have gone sway for times immemorial the world over. One of the basic tenets of professional practice is the doctrine of Confidentiality by which a professional is bound not to divulge information acquired from a client by virtue of their professional relationship. Clause 14 of Anti-Homosexuality Bill roundly enjoins all professionals to report to police information on commission of homosexuality, acquired in the course of their professional dealings and relationships with their clients, in breach of their professional duty of confidentiality to their clients. This removes the basis of trust, which is the foundation of the professional – client relationship and thereby violates the right to practice a profession. The provision clearly undermines the right to engage in lawful occupations, trade or business that may directly or indirectly have a link with client’s sexuality. Medical doctors and personnel, lawyers, Counselors, religious leaders, traders of sex products, social workers, human rights activists and many other professional are affected by Clause 14 of the Bill. This is unfortunate in a liberalized market economy, supported very much by the private sector that is grounded on the right to practice one’s profession and carry on any lawful occupation, trade or business.
The British medical journal The Lancet reported that the bill’s targeting of professionals may be intentional. In a December 2009 talk that M.P. David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor, delivered to a cheering audience at Makerere University in Kampala (subscription required):
Before ceding the podium, Bahati had one last point to make. “This is not a Ugandan thing”, he said, his chest swelling with indignation. “Homosexuals are using foreign aid organisations to promote this. If an organisation is found to be promoting homosexuality, then their licence should be revoked.”
Shoulder to shoulder with Bahati’s supporters a half dozen or so Ugandans listened quietly. Several were doctors who had spent much of their careers toiling against a disease that has taken the lives of more than a million Ugandans. Their faces were stoic as they contemplated the implications of Bahati’s bill for the fight against HIV/AIDS not just among gay men but also among the wives and children of men who also have sex with men. They considered the long, lean years that had been spent quietly setting up networks to disburse information on HIV/AIDS to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex Ugandans.
“As a doctor, the law infuriates me”, said one general practitioner, who is much sought after by sexual minorities for his willingness to treat them, and who asked that his name not be used for fear that he would be arrested for working with sexual minorities. “We are only now getting to a point where people understand there is a problem. This law is going to erase all of that.”
It will erase all that for two reasons. Doctors who are found providing accurate safe-sex information to people who they know are gay can be held liable for “aiding and abetting” homosexuality. And gay people, understanding that Clause 14 would require doctors to report known gay people to police, would be driven underground. This is critical in the fight against AIDS. As The Lancet’s Zoe Alsop reported, in much of Africa, where AIDS is predominantly a heterosexual disease, many people, including doctors, believe that it’s impossible for gay people to become infected with HIV. This is a very different understanding than in the west.
While Clause 14 has gotten a lot of attention, we must not loose sight of what Clause 7 might do. Ordinary people who come in contact with LGBT people — whether they be friends, parents, siblings, co-workers, employers or neighbors — through ordinary kindnesses, accommodations, mutual aid and support, can be seen as “aiding and abetting” homosexuality. And they, too, could face imprisonment if they fail to report their gay friends, sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, co-workers, employees, or neighbors to police within twenty-four hours of finding out about that person’s sexuality.
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 7 against “aiding and abetting homosexuality” be deleted because, the committee said, it was covered by Clause 13 prohibiting the “promotion of homosexuality.” (We will examine that clause later.) It made no recommendation for Clause 11 against “brothels,” leaving it intact as written. As for Clause 14 requiring everyone to report gay people to police within twenty-four hours, the committee recommended its deletion, saying “The offence will create absurdities and the provision will be too hard to implement.”
But the Eighth Parliament expired before the legislature 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 Clauses 7 and 14 with all its absurdities. And that is exactly where things stand 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.
November 18th, 2012
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; Mazipatra Queer Film Festival, Prague/Brno, Czech Republic; Pride, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Massachusetts Supreme Court Rules In Favor of Marriage Equality: 2003. It’s been nine years since marriage equality arrived in the Bay State, and the sky still hasn’t fallen. Massachusetts still has the lowest divorce rate in the nation, and school children are still not being subjected to live gay sex demonstrations as part of their state-mandated curriculum. But gay couples can marry, and that was due to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in 2003, which became the first state supreme court to rule that same-sex couples had constitutional right to marry.
In Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the court ruled 4-3 that the state could not “deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry,” and gave the state legislature 180 days to “take any such action as it may deem appropriate” to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Liberty Counsel tried to get the Federal Courts involved, but those efforts failed when the judge denied their request, the First Circuit Court of Appeals backed him up, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. After a long drawn-out battle in which the Massachusetts high court ruled in response to a question from the state Senate that civil unions would not satisfy the court’s ruling. The legislature ended up taking no action, neither blocking nor implementing the Goodridge decision, and the state began marrying same-sex couples on May 17, 2004.
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).
And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?
Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.
November 17th, 2012
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.
If you’ve been paying attention to the clauses we’ve examined so far, you may have noticed a trend. The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill assumes that there always two kinds of gay people in the world: aggressors and victims. The proposed crime of “aggravated homosexuality,” which can bring with it the death penalty (see Clause 3), identifies “offenders” and “victims,” even though some of those so-called victims — people with disabilities, an HIV-negative partner of an HIV-positive person, a person who “serially” loved another person — would very likely have been consensual partners. The following three clauses further delineate the many ways in which someone can become a “victim” of homosexuality:
8. Conspiracy to engage in homosexuality.
A person who conspires with another to induce another person of the same sex by any means of false pretence or other fraudulent means to permit any person of the same sex to have unlawful carnal knowledge of him or her commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.9. Procuring homosexuality by threats, etc.
(1) A person who–(a) by threats or intimidation procures or attempts to procure any woman or man to have any unlawful carnal knowledge with any person of the same sex, either in Uganda or elsewhere;
(b) by false pretences or false representations procures any woman or man to have any unlawful carnal connection with any person of the same sex, either in Uganda or elsewhere; or
(2) A person shall not be convicted of an offence under this section upon the evidence of one witness only, unless that witness is corroborated in some material particular by evidence implicating the accused.
10. Detention with intent to commit homosexuality.
A person who detains another person with the intention to commit acts of homosexuality with him or herself or with any other person commits an offence and is liable on conviction for seven years.
You will notice that Clause 9 is incomplete. When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee considered the bill in May of 2011, they recognized that Clause 9 could have benefited from some proof-reading. The committee recommended the following (PDF: 57KB/6 pages.):
Clause 9 is amended by
a) Deleting the words “…either in Uganda or elsewhere; or” appearing at the end of the sub-clauses (1) (a) and (b).
b) Adding at the end of the provision the words “…commits an offence and is liable on conviction be liable to imprisonment of seven years.
Justification
To complete the provision by creating an offence and imposing a prohibitive penalty.
Clauses 8 through 10, by themselves, don’t actually serve any legal purposes. It’s already to illegal to threaten someone into having sex — that’s called rape — and it’s illegal to detain another person against their will for any purpose — that’s called kidnapping. These clauses merely make illegal those things which are already illegal. But they do serve a propaganda purpose by reinforcing the idea that gay people are inherently predatory. And they also provide a convenient menu from which quick-thinking “victims of homosexuality” can choose when they notice the benefits of being identified as a “victim.” And why would someone want to do that?
5. Protection, assistance and payment of compensation to victims of homosexuality.
(1 ) A victim of homosexuality shall not be penalized for any crime commuted as a direct result of his or her involvement in homosexuality.(2) A victim of homosexuality shall be assisted to enable his or her views and concerns to be presented and considered at the appropriate stages of the criminal proceedings.
(3) Where a person is convicted of homosexuality or aggravated homosexuality under sections 2 and 3 of this Act, the court may, in addition to any sentence imposed on the offender, order that the victim of the offence be paid compensation by the offender for any physical, sexual or psychological harm caused to the victim by the offence.
(4) The amount of compensation shall be determined by the court and the court shall take into account the extent of harm suffered by the victim of the offence. the degree of force used by the offender and medical and other expenses incurred by the victim as a result of the offence.
6. Confidentiality.
(1) At any stage of the Investigation or trial of an offence under this Act, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judicial officers and medical practitioners, as well as parties to the case, shall recognize the right to privacy of the victim.(2) For the purpose of subsection (1), in cases involving children and other cases where the court considers it appropriate. proceedings of the court shall be conducted in camera, outside the presence of the media.
(3) Any editor or publisher, reporter or columnist in case of printed materials. announcer or producer in case of television and radio, producer or director of a film to case of the movie industry, or any person utilizing trimedia facilities or information technology who publishes or causes the publicity of the names and personal circumstances or any other information tending to establish the victim’s identity without authority of court commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty currency points.
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.
The very first statement of clause 5 represents a huge get-out-of-jail free card for anyone who is caught in a same-sex relationship (or, as we have pointed out before, perhaps simply in the act of “touching” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that “does not necessarily culminate in intercourse”). Say, for example, if police should burst into your bedroom while you are there with another person of the same sex and you are caught red-handed being handled “through anything” in an act that “does not necessarily culminate in intercourse,” all you have to do tell them that you’re the victim. Tell them your partner made you do it; tell them your partner kept you there against your will; tell them your partner trickedyou into doing it — don’t worry, no one will bother wondering how he might have tricked you into it — and you will be free from prosecution.
But the benefits don’t end there. You won’t just escape a lifetime in prison or the hangman’s noose, you’ll even get paid to tell the judge how terribly you were victimized.
These clauses practically beg you to rat out your partner. And it’s the perfect escape hatch for the quick-witted or the well-connected: no one even needs to know that you were involved because the confidentially clause will ensure that your name stays out of the papers and television.
L-R: Pasters Solomon Male (in the blue shirt), Michael Kyazze and Martin Ssempa in court recently. (Photo via Daily Monitor)
Based on very recent experience, these clauses are guaranteed to open the floodgates to massive anti-gay witch hunts for anyone with an axe to grind against an enemy. This bill will become a potent weapon in all sorts of religious, political, or business rivalries, let alone the day-to-day disputes that arise among family members, co-workers, students, and neighbors. Imagine what would have happened to Pastor Robert Kayanja of the Rubaga Miracle Center Cathedral, who was accused of homosexuality by rival anti-gay pastors Martin Ssempa, Michael Kyazze and Solomon Male in 2009. Ssempa, Kyazze and Male were convicted last month after it was demonstrated that their charges against Kayanja were false. But if this law had been in place, the result could have been very different, simply because of the strong incentive it would have provided for someone to come forward to claim to be Kayanja’s “victim.” And instead of Ssempa and others being sentenced to perform community service, it could have been Kayanja who would be rotting away in a Ugandan prison for seven years, the rest of his life, or worse.
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.
Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.
November 17th, 2012
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.
Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been re-introduced into Parliament and is currently in the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. As the Committee considers what to do with the bill, 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 this series, we will examine the original text of bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.
The next clause in Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill is Clause 4:
4. Attempt to commit homosexuality.
(1) A person who attempts to commit the offence of homosexuality commits a felony and is liable on conviction to imprisonment seven years.(2) A person who attempts to commit the offence of aggravated homosexuality commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.
After having dealt with Clauses 1 and 2 (which sets up the “crime” of homosexuality) and Clause 3 (the infamous death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”), I hardly know what do do with this one. Particularly in light of the extraordinarily broad definition of the “crime” of homosexuality in Clauses 1 and 2 — where the crime of “touching” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” (a finger? an elbow? a Ronco Pocket Fisherman?) “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.” I’m having a hard time imagining what it would be like to simply attempt to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” without “culminat(ing) in intercourse” in a way that lands you seven years in prison. Or for life if you do all of that while HIV-positive. Can you imagine the prosecutor in a case like this?
“Your honor, the defendant did maliciously and willfully attempt to touch another man’s shoulder with his kneecap through his jeans and the victim’s hoodie without culminating in intercourse, but failed to complete the attempt. The State demands seven years!”
“Beg your pardon Your Honor. The man whose shoulder he attempted to touch (but didn’t) with his kneecap through his jeans and the victim’s hoodie without culminating in intercourse, is missing a leg. Because he’s disabled, that’s ‘attempted aggravated homosexuality’! The State demands life!”
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 displayed what is perhaps its only spasm of legislative wisdom by recommending that the clause be deleted (PDF: 57KB/6 pages). The committee observed that this clause “may become too hard and difficult to prove which may cause absurdities.” Absurdities indeed. But the Eighth Parliament expired before the legislature could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, the bill was re-introduced with the original October 2009 language intact, including Clause 4 with all its absurdities. And that is exactly where things stand 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.
November 17th, 2012
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; Mazipatra Queer Film Festival, Prague/Brno, Czech Republic; Pride, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
The Arrest of “The 41” in Mexico City: 1901. Getting to the bottom of what actually happened is tricky business. The only accounts of the raid conducted by Mexico City’s police on a private party come from a decidedly unapproving and often sensational press. We know virtually nothing of those who were arrested; we barely know some of the names. Their story was never told: they were never interviewed, and as far as I can tell there is not a single quote which can be reliably attributed to any of them. Whatever we may know of the scandal was clouded further by fictional accounts — the 41, as they were simply known, became the subject of a popular novel in 1906. But one thing is certain: the “Ball of the 41” became the scandal of the year, inspiring more than a month of headlines, sermons, editorials, and even a few corridos.
Only a few details are solid. In the very early morning hours of November 17, 1941, police raided a private party and arrested forty-one men, nineteen of them were dressed as women. The one in drag were publicly humiliated by being forced to sweep the streets — “women’s work.” The 41 were taken to an army barracks and inducted into the Mexican army. At least some of them were then put on a train to Veracruz, sent by ship to the Yucatán, and made to serve in the army as it was putting down a Mayan insurgency.
Those appear to be the bare facts, which, of course, weren’t enough to satisfy the nation’s newspapers. Here is how El Popular reported the story on November 20:
Last Sunday night, the police of the Eighth Precinct were informed that in the house located at number 4 La Paaz Street, a ball was being held without the corresponding permit. They immediately moved in to surprise the culprits, and after having encountered numerous difficulties in trying to get the partygoers to open up, the police broke into the house’s patio where they found 42 individuals who were dancing to the excessively loud music of a local street band.
When they noted the presence of the police, some of those who were dressed in women’s clothing attempted to flee in order to change out of the clothes of the opposite six; but as the police understood the gravity of the situation, they did not allow anyone to leave, and all 42 including those still dressed as women were taken to the station from which they were then sent to Belem Prison, charged with attacks on morality, and put at the disposition of the District Governor.
As a complement to the previous report, we will say that among those individuals dressed as women, several were recognized as dandies who are seen daily on Plateros Street.
These men wore elegant ladies’ gowns, wigs, false breasts, earrings, embroidered shoes, and a great deal of eye makeup and rouge on their faces.
Once the news hit the boulevards, all kinds of commentaries were made, and the conduct of those individuals was censured.
We will not provide our readers with further details because they are summarily disgusting.
It was said that many of those arrested came from highly respected families with ties to the government of dictator Porfirio DÃaz. Some of the earliest newspaper reports, like this one, had it that 42 were arrested. That number later dropped to 41, which generated even more rumors. One had it that the elderly lady who owned the house was one of those arrested, and she was later released. Other, more sinister rumors had it that one of those arrested was one of DÃaz’s nephews.
El Popular may have been reluctant to provide details, but in subsequent days it was happy to imagine the scene for its readers:
If only we had seen them in their resplendent hairdos, their fake cleavage, with their shiny sparkling earrings, with their falsies like the ones worn by anemic bimbos, with their corseted waists, their dancing-girl skirts like inverted tulips, their butterfly tights, their shoes fringed with crimped gold thread and colored glass beads, and all of them bedaubed in white powder and rouge, prancing about in the fandango with their perfumed and curly mustaches.
On November 23, El PaÃs published this account of one group of prisoners being transferred to the train bound for Veracruz:
The men-only ball that was raided by the police continues provoking talk in all social circles, by virtue of the fact that many of those detained are perfectly well known, since among them are men who stroll day after day down the boulevards showing off their stylish and perfectly tailored suits and wearing sumptuous jewels.
As we stated in yesterday’s issue, 12 of those captured in the house on the fourth block of La Paz were sent to Veracruz along with seven thieves who were also conscripted into the armed services.
At 5:30 in the morning, the hour at which attendance is taken in the 24th Battalion (that is being remitted to the port of Veracruz), those called on first were the 12 individuals who had been at the famed ball, and after number 13, who was a pelado [a term for a rough, lower-class urban Mexican] was called, he replied on hearing his name, “Present, my Captain,but let me go on record as saying that I am being conscripted as a thief; but I’m not one of them,” and he pointed to the group of dancers.
This provoked the laughter of those present, because not even a thief was willing to be confused with the perfumed boys, as they are called by the soldiers from the barracks
A very amusing scene developed in the the barracks of the 24th Battalion when the repugnant ones arrived wearing their magniï¬cent overcoats, along with hats and ï¬ne patent-leather shoes. The captain of the recruits made them all strip without delay, and then handed out the rough but honorable articles of clothing that are given to recruits.
With tears in their eyes, they stripped off all their clothes, some of them begging that they be allowed at least to keep their ï¬ne silk undergarments, a request that the captain denied, since, he told them, there they were just the same as everyone else. He didn’t even allow them to keep their socks, and they all began to cry as they put on the shoes that would replace their lovely patent leather ladies’ shoes.
The government paper, El Imparcial, took plains to deny that the army was foolish enough to send any girly-men to the front lines:
All of the prisoners have been sent to Yucatán, but not — as it has been said — to join the ranks of the valiant soldiers taking part in the campaign; they will be employed instead on such tasks as digging trenches, opening breaches, and raising temporary fortifications.
As you have undoubtedly noticed, it was the men in drag who occupied the attention of the press; through their manner of dress, they particularly transgressed the limits of what was tolerable in Mexican society. This brings up the two ways in which homosexuality has traditionally been viewed in Mexico: There are homosexuals, and then there are homosexuals. There are men who are attracted to other men (we understand this homosexuality as a sexual orientation), and there are men who, while identifying as men, are effeminate and, more specifically, adopted the “passive” role (a further transgression of the male gender role.) The second group, it might be said, are the real homosexuals according to traditional society; it was possible (and still is in some rural areas) for one man to have sex with another man and still be regarded as straight, as long as he is the one who retains his claim to masculinity by being the chingón (the one who does the deed) and not the chingado (the one to whom the deed is done), who has effectively surrendered his claims to masculinity.
As long as there was at least some measure of deniability that one had surrendered their masculinity, then that masculinity (and hence, heterosexuality) remained intact in many peoples’ eyes. But deniability was crucial. A few newspapers tried to argue that the twenty-one who weren’t in drag were had been “tricked,” leaving readers to try to imagine who those “tricked” men couldn’t have known who they were dancing with. Other accounts, of course, found that impossible to believe. And it appears that it was that lack of deniability which ultimately doomed everyone to the same fate. While those who were in drag were the most remarked-upon players in the scandal, the whole affair today is known as the “the 41,” not just the nineteen.
Today, the number 41 has become slang for homosexuality or, more specifically, “faggot” or maricón. Some of the early LGBT advocacy groups in Mexico incorporated the number into their names, just as many similar groups in the U.S. have leveraged “Stonewall” as a shorthand for the struggle for gay rights.
[Sources: Robert McKee Irwin. “The Famous 41: The scandalous birth of modern Mexican homosexuality.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 6, no. 3 (2000): 353-376.
Robert McKee Irwin, Edward J. McCaughan, Michelle Rocio Nasser. The Famous 41: Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico, 1901
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Rock Hudson: 1925. In 1960, The Saturday Evening Post’s Pete Martin interviewed him in 1960 and asked the question that far more people were asking that we might realize:
“…Somewhere during this interview I have to write at least one paragraph in which I say that you were married and that you are not married any more. I’ll tell you this before you begin: I’ve read that your marriage was “made,” not by you but by the same agent who is reported to have made a star of you.
“I’m sure you did read that,” he said. “I read it too, and it made me fell like an idiot. She was my agent’s secretary. I met her in a supermarket. She introduced herself. Naturally I had talked to her many times on the phone. For a while we had a lot of trouble getting together. Either I had a date or she had one. We went together for a year and were married. But it didn’t work out. We stayed married only a couple of years. Last summer our divorce was final. Now I’m single again.”
…I said, “I’m interested in your present reaction to dames. You do date, don’t you?”
“Certainly,” he said. Only my dates don’t get into print. To get a date into print you have to appear in a public place like a night club. I don’t like night clubs.”
“What’s your idea of a date?”
“To take a girl for a sail or meet her at my house or somebody else’s house. What am I supposed to prove? There are times when I almost wish I made the scandal sheets.”
Even in 1960, the interest in Hudson’s love life went a bit beyond that experienced by other male sex symbols. What other subtext could possibly explain the question about whether his marriage to Phyllis Gates was “made” or not? Martin’s question came exceptionally close to exposing the secret that just about everyone in Hollywood knew, that Hudson’s agent, Henry Willson (see Jul 31), had prevailed on Hudson to marry Willson’s secretary after Hudson narrowly escaped having his secret exposed in Confidential magazine in 1955. The couple divorced in 1958, and Hudson never married again.
Hudson was just one product from Willson’s “adonis factory,” so named for Willson’s uncanny ability to find (and often, bed) some of Hollywood’s hotest male stars. Willson took a not-so-smart Roy Fitzgerald out of the truck he was driving, fixed his teeth and his bad grammar, taught him to lower his voice and lose his sibilant lisp, along with how to move, shake hands, sit, dance, sing, ride horses, and even act. It took Hudson thirty eight takes before he could successfully deliver his only line in Warner Brother’s Figher Squadron in 1948.
He got better from there. He received good reviews for his role in 1954’s Magnificant Obsession opposite Jane Wyman, and his popularity went through the roof with the 1956 release of Giant, which also featured Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. In the 1960s, he turned to romantic comedies, including three with Dorris Day: Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, and Send Me Now Flowers. As the sixties wore on, film offers declined and Hudson began transitioning to television. From 1971 to 1977, he played police commissioner Stewart McMillan in McMillan & Wife (“wife” was played by Susan Saint James).
In November 1981, Hudson suffered a serious heart attack, followed by quintuple bypass surgery. Because of his heavy drinking and smoking, that didn’t surprise anyone, but his unusually long recovery did raise some eyebrows. He remained in ill health while filming The Ambassador in 1983-1984, and health problems followed while filming the made-for-TV movie The Vegas Strip Wars in 1984. When he began appearing in a recurring role in the primetime soap Dynasty, his gaunt appearance, deteriorating speech and failing memory — he could no longer memorize his lines — rumors began to fly. First it was cancer, this publicists said, but others began whispering “AIDS.”
In July 1985, Hudson appearance on Doris Day’s talk show became instant news due to his shocking appearance in incoherant speech. The following week, Hudson was in Paris for experimental treatment when he issued a press release confirming that he was dying of AIDS, which he attributed to multiple blood transfusions when he underwent bypass surgery. But that story didn’t hold. People magazine published a story about Hudson’s disease, and featured comments Hollywood actors including Angie Dickinson, Robert Stack, Joan Rivers, and Mamie van Doren, who said they knew about his homosexuality and supported him. His death on October 2, 1985, galvanized Hollywood, especially his life-long friend Elizabeth Taylor, and made AIDS fundraising not just a fashionable cause, but an urgent one for a nation that was still very uncomfortable with discussing the disease.
[Sources: Peter Martin. “I call on Rock Hudson.” The Saturday Evening Post 233, no. 4 (July 23, 1960): 16ff.
Robert Hofler. The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson
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).
And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?
Clause by Clause Through Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Part 1 begins here.
November 16th, 2012
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’s Christmas break 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.
Today we examine the most discussed clause of the bill, Clause 3 which would establish the crime of “aggravated homosexuality”:
3. Aggravated homosexuality.
(1) A person commits the offense of aggravated homosexuality where the(a) person against whom the offence is committed is below the age of 18 years;
(b) offender is a person living with HIV;
(c) offender is a parent or guardian of the person against whom the offence is committed;
(d) offender is a person in authority over the person against whom the offence is committed;
(e) victim of the offence is a person with disability;
(f) offender is a serial offender, or
(g) offender applies, administers or causes to be used by any man or woman any drug, matter or thing with intent to stupefy overpower him or her so as to there by enable any person to have unlawful carnal connection with any person of the same sex,
(2) A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death.
(3) Where a person is charged with the offence under this section, that person shall undergo a medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status.
This is easily the most contentious clause of the bill, and the clause which the bill’s sponsor, M.P. David Bahati, has exploited to maximum effect. Go back and look at most of the definitions for “aggravated homosexuality” and see if you don’t agree with me that many of them represent some very horrendous crimes. Sex with minors? Check. Incest? Check. Slipping a Mickey? Check. Applying the death penalty to those provisions could be very contentious, but who among us haven’t reacted with the wish to “string them up” a few times in our lives?
But mixed in with those crimes are others which, on second look, demonstrate exactly what the bill’s author and supporters think of gay people. Take the provision where the “offender is a person living with HIV,” and notice that it is followed by a requirement that the suspect undergo an HIV test to ascertain his or her eligibility for the death sentence. In other words, whether the person knew he or she was HIV-positive is irrelevant in the bill. The government will find that out and decide whether the suspect qualifies for the death penalty. Additionally, there is nothing in the bill about whether the person tried to hide his or her HIV status. No matter whatever disclosures the individual may have made, no matter whatever precautions may have been taken, no matter whatever consent the suspect’s partner may have given — and no matter whether sex had actually occurred (See clauses 1 and 2) — an individual merits death according to this law simply for being HIV-positive. No matter what.
Not only that, but suspects will be tested to determine their HIV status and, not incidentally, their eligibility for the death penalty. Which means that people who don’t even know they are HIV-positive will fall under this clause.
Another provision, where the “victim of the offence is a person with disability,” plays on the assumption built into the proposed law that the “offender” is predatory, which necessarily involves a “victim.” (We’ll discuss more on that later when we get to Clauses 5 and 6.) It also assumes that the person with the disability is unable to be an equal partner in a relationship. One couple that I know personally consists of a deaf man and a hearing man. They’ve been together for years, but under the terms of this bill, one would die while the other would go to prison for the rest of his life (unless he took advantage of Clauses 5 and 6).
But the worst part of this clause is where it lays the charge of “aggravated homosexuality” for when the “offender is a serial offender.” This clause alone can entangle almost anyone in the hangman’s noose. It all goes back to Clause 1, where you will find this definition:
“serial offender” means a person who has previous convictions of the offence of homosexuality or related offences; [emphasis mine]
There are a ton of “related offenses” in the proposed bill, including renting a room to a gay person, refusing to report a gay person to police, using the internet to advocate for the rights of gay people, donating to a pro-gay cause — and all of these offenses may be committed by straight people. A prior conviction on one of those clauses and then “touching” someone “with a part of a body” and “through anything” without anything even close to sex taking place (again, see clauses 1 and 2), and you’re headed to the gallows under this bill. Rob Tisinai illustrated how this can happen in this video from 2010.
The other provisions under this clause — those parts outlawing incest, child abuse, drugging someone — are already illegal under Ugandan law. This bill provides nothing new for those cases except for the death penalty. But those provisions are included in this bill for a very important reason: they provide a fig-leaf of an excuse for the bill which Bahati and his supporters have exploited to the fullest extent. For example, he told the BBC in December 2009:
There has been a distortion in the media that we are providing death for gays. That is not true,” he said. “When a homosexual defiles a kid of less than 18 years old, we are providing a penalty for this.”
Two days later, he told The Guardian:
The section of the death penalty relates to defilement by an adult who is homosexual and this is consistent with the law on defilement which was passed in 2007. The whole intention is to prevent the recruitment of under-age children, which is going on in single-sex schools. We must stop the recruitment and secure the future of our children.”
On December 27, he went on Ugandan television to say:
The pro-gay community picked on the death, the word death, in the bill, and just turned it around to attract sympathy in their country. We are not providing for death penalty for two adults, we are providing for death penalty to be consistent with the Defilement Act that we passed in 2007, er where an adult, engages, rapes, a minor of 18 years and below… (Ssempa: a girl) and when that adult has HIV/AIDS, or you are a guardian, you are a parent, you want to rape the kid that you are looking after, this is what we are proposing.
Others have picked up Bahati’s line on the bill’s death penalty, including Americans Tony Perkins, Molotov Mitchell, Cliff Kincaid, Andrew Wommack, Las Vegas megachurch pastor Mitch Harrison, and Karen Schuberg, among many others, who claimed that the proposed death penalty is limited to just three things: intentionally spreading HIV, child molestation, and coercion. And they claim this despite the very clear language of the bill. Funny how none of them will actually include the text of the bill itself whenever they make these claims.
Has the Death Penalty Been Dropped?
On a final note, it’s important to address the persistent false reports in the media that the death penalty has been removed from the bill. Those false reports have been reported as though they were fact since December, 2009. Part of the confusion has stemmed from the Ugandan governments’ pronouncements over the years that the bill has been “rejected”. In April 2010, that so-called “rejection” was followed by a government recommendation that the bill’s provisions be passed under the radar in other, less controversial bills. Additional reports of the government “shelving” the bill emerged in March 2011, only to be followed again a few weeks later with suggestions that the bill be carved up and passed unnoticed in other bills.
Recommendations from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in May, 2011 (Click to download, PDF: 57KB/6 pages.)
Finally in May of 2011, the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which had been charged with the task of coming up with recommendations for the bill, issued their final report. They recommended removing some clauses of the bill, while also recommending the addition of a new clause criminalizing the conduct of same-sex marriages. As for the death penalty provision, the committee implied that the death penalty was unsatisfactory because it “does not make the offender feel the punishment for his actions.”
Sounds like they’re ready to get rid of it, right? Well here was their recommendation for Clause 3: (PDF: 57KB/6 pages.)
1. Clause 3 (2) is amended by substituting for the words “…suffer death” with words “…the penalty provided for aggravated defilement under Section 129 of the Penal Code Act”.
Justification
To harmonise the provision with the penalty under the Penal Code Act
Well guess what. Section 129 of the Penal Code Act reads that anyone who “commits a felony called aggravated defilement [i.e. child sexual abuse] and is, on conviction by the High Court, liable to suffer death.” Which means that the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee recommended that the death penalty be retained through stealth. Bahati then went on to claim that the death penalty was removed even though it was still a part of the bill. The Eighth Parliament ended before it could act on the committee’s recommendation.
On February 7, 2012, the original version of the bill, unchanged from when it was first introduced in 2009, was reintroduced into the Ninth Parliament. The bill was again sent to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. Despite reports to the contrary, the original language specifying the death penalty is still in the bill, and will remain there unless the committee recommends its removal and Parliament adopts that recommendation in a floor vote.
Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill (Revised):
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.
November 16th, 2012
House Speaker Rebecca Kadaga
Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, today reports that Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has demanded that Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee bring Anti-Homosexuality Bill to the House floor for debate and a vote by next Tuesday:
The committee chairperson, Mr Stephen Tashobya, passed on Ms Rebecca Kadaga’s directive to committee members yesterday as he summoned them to attend next week’s session in person “to have the Bill concluded”.< In her November 13 letter, the Speaker advised Mr Tashobya to be mindful of what she said was the high demand by the public to address homosexuality. "I write to reiterate my earlier instruction to your committee to expeditiously handle the review of the report on the Bill. As you are aware, there is high demand by the population to address the escalating problem of promoting and recruiting minors into homosexuality," the letter reads in part. "This is therefore to inform you that I shall place the Bill on the Order Paper immediately after conclusion of the Oil Bills," she wrote. Parliament is concluding consideration of the Petroleum (Exploration, Production and Development) Bill as the House breaks off for Christmas recess on December 15, which suggests that after the Bill is hopefully completed by next Tuesday, MPs can expect to debate and probably pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
On Monday, Kadaga called for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which still includes a death penalty for gay people under certain circumstances, to be brought to a vote and passed within two weeks.
November 16th, 2012
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; Mazipatra Queer Film Festival, Prague/Brno, Czech Republic; Pride, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Paula Vogel: 1951. “I only write about things that directly impact my life.” Vogel says. “If people get upset, it’s because the play is working.” It certainly worked for How I Learned to Drive, which explores control and manipulation through the issues of misogyny, pedophilia and incest through the relatively simple metaphor of driving. She won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for it.
Her first major play, The Baltimore Waltz was a comedy about AIDS, in 1990, when AIDS still couldn’t be joked about much. Hot’N Throbbing (1994) looks at the intersection of porn and domestic violence, while The Mineola Twins (1999) portrays women’s experience over the previous thirty years through the eyes of identical twins. The plays are deadly serious; many of them are also comedies or at least incorporate comedy in them. They are also, as theater theorist Jill Dolan wrote, “at once creative, highly imaginative, and brutally honest.”
Vogel says that her family, especially her brother who died of AIDS in 1988, play a very important role in her plays. “In every play, there are a couple of places where I send a message to my late brother Carl. Just a little something in the atmosphere of every play to try and change the homophobia in our world.” Se is also a teacher, leading the graduate playwriting program at Brown University. In 2008, she left Brown to chair the playwriting department at Yale. She stepped down in 2012. In 2004, she married Brown University professor and researcher Anne Fausto-Sterling in Massachusetts.
Glenn Burke: 1952. He was known as “the guy who invented the high five,” when in a game in 1977, Burke was standing on deck as fellow Dodger Dusty Baker was rounding third and headed for home after hitting a home run. As Baker crossed home plate, Burke raised his had. Baker responded by raising his also, and when the two slapped hands, history was made. Believe it or not. And to make the scene complete, Burke then stepped up to the plate and hit a home run of his own.
Burke made another kind of history, after a fashion: he is believed to be the first gay ballplayer who was out to his team mates. According to his 1995 autobiography, Out at Home
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).
And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?
November 15th, 2012
Oh, it’s time for some fun. When Obama endorsed marriage equality back in May, the National Organization had something to say about it. It’s time to glance back at those statements and see just how well NOM understands America. I’ve bolded some of the juiciest bits in case you’re short on time, but the full quotes are worth reading, especially if you’re feeling especially schadenfreudy.
Let’s start with this headline, glorious in its certainty:
SSM Will Cost Obama Re-election Bid
The Obama campaign is beholden to gay marriage financiers and is counting on an energized base to carry him to victory this November. But it’s an approach that is likely to backfire, alienating large parts of the constituency that carried him to victory in 2008…President Obama’s announcement is likely to spark a divisive battle over same-sex marriage in the Democratic Party platform this summer. Same-sex marriage will be a defining issue in swing states, especially states like Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Nevada where state marriage amendments are threatened by President Obama’s position.
NOM gave us this quote from their favorite political consultant, full of sagacity and wisdom:
Frank Schubert: Obama’s Gay Marriage Gambit A Pinball Loser
The left is jumping for joy at their accomplishment, forcing President Obama out of the closet on gay marriage. Their celebration will be short-lived, though, because they have very likely cost him the presidency. The presidential election is not going to be decided in states like California where George Clunie and Nancy Pelosi are cheering President Obama’s gay marriage “evolution,” but based on how voters in a series of swing states cast their ballots – states like North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. President Obama and his buddies on the left have thrust the issue of same-sex marriage front and center in these swing states. How is that going to play? Not well for Obama.
Here’s NOM in all its foot-stamping determination:
NOM Promises Pro-Marriage Americans Will Defeat Obama This November For Abandoning Marriage
The definition of marriage was already headed for the ballot in four states this fall; now it will be one of the defining issues of the presidential election. No state in this country has ever voted for gay marriage. Just yesterday North Carolina voters sent a clear message that America wants to preserve marriage. We intend to win the marriage debate this November.
And you might say this one backfired on them:
Obama Abandons Marriage. Will America Stand For It? NOM Marriage News
Pres. Obama may be basking in the applause of the media, and rolling in cash from his gay millionaire bundlers, but American now has a clear choice: a president who supports gay marriage or one who stands with the majority of the American people.
How did that “clear choice” work out for you NOM?
That’s just a sampling. Browse their blog and you’ll find many more:
NOM’s Peters: Socially Conservative Democrats Will “Jump Ship” Over Obama’s Marriage Betrayal
Maggie Gallagher: Obama’s Gay Marriage Support Will Help Romney in 2012
NRO: Recent Polling Shows Romney Pulling Ahead Because of Marriage
This is sinfully delicious. NOM is currently in full damage control mode right, inventing reason after reason why they didn’t really lose on November 6. But no matter what they say now, they were simply, fully, and woefully wrong about Obama, marriage equality, and America. Instead of rationalizing away their disaster, they ought to be asking:
If we were so wrong about this, what else might we be wrong about?
But I suppose if they were that thoughtful and aware, they wouldn’t be in the business they’re in.
November 15th, 2012
In the weeks running up to Maryland’s Question Six, one could hardly go a day without some headline blaring the tragic tale of the diversity officer who opposed equality for gay deaf students. They demanded that the world stand in solidarity of Gallaudet’s Angela McCaskill and her right to oppose the rights of those she was hired to defend. They trumpeted her as an example of the calamity that would befall supporters of “traditional marriage” if those uppity gays were allowed to marry.
But now that Question Six has passed, there’s nothing but silence. Not a word. Narry a peep.
I wonder if McCaskill is now discovering that her ardent supporters were only interested in her employment situation so far as it allowed them to play her as a martyr for their own cause.
November 15th, 2012
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Hong Kong, China; Mazipatra Queer Film Festival, Prague/Brno, Czech Republic; Pride, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Frank Kameny (center) marching with members of the Washington Mattachine Society in 1970.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
First Official Meeting of the Washington Mattachine Society: 1961. On this date in history, gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny and several others held the first official meeting of the Washington Mattachine Society. The Washington Mattachines, unlike other Mattachine Societies elsewhere in the country, brought a new, aggressive approach to the fight for gay rights. Frank Kameny later reflected on the society’s founding in an essay he contributed to Eric Marcus’s Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights : 1945-1990 : An Oral History
Meanwhile, other things were going on with Mattachine. The national structure of Mattachine collapsed in March of that year. The San Francisco Mattachine had cut loose all the other affiliates and wished them well, urging them to change their names and to keep on working. The Denver group became The Neighbors and disappeared. The New York group retained its name and incorporated as a nose-thumbing gesture to San Francisco. It be came the Mattachine Society, Incorporated, of New York versus the Mattachine Society in San Francisco. It was all very petty.
…That following November, on November 15, 1961, we had our first official meeting of the Washington Mattachine. I was the organizer and founder. We did all the things that an organization does when it gets going. We took out a back account, got a post-office box, wrote our constitution, elected our officers, set up our meeting structure, and chose a name. I opted against using the Mattachine name, but I was outvoted. I wanted something that was more explicit and expressive, but wouldn’t have used the word gay then. While it was an in-group word, it hadn’t yet gone public.
Now the movement of those days was very unassertive, apologetic, and defensive. I don’t say this critically, and not necessarily derogatorily, but it was a different era. First of all, up to this time, homosexuality had never been publicly discussed. Let me give you an illustration of that. As you’re aware, the question of queers int he government was very much part of the grist of the mill for McCarthy in his hearings in the early 1950s. When McCarthy was riding high, I was still in graduate school at Harvard. I read the Boston Herald every day. I read the New York Times every Sunday. I listened to the radio all the time. I read Time magazine weekly. Yet I did not learn until somewhere around 1958 or 1959 that homosexuality had been a theme of those hearings because it was not widely reported.: the word homosexual was not fit to print or discuss or be heard. Virtually from one end of the decade to the other, outside the medical books, there was nothing anywhere on the subject. It was blanked out, blacked out. It wasn’t there!
Because there was no publicity, there was no way of getting to people. The people in the small movement at that time were only talking to themselves. There was absolutely nothing whatsoever that anybody heard at that time, anywhere that was other than negative! Nothing! We were sick; we were sinners; we were perverts. And so the movement, predictably, in retrospect, did not take strong positions. It gave a hearing to everybody, saying, “As long as it deals with homosexuality, all views must be heard, even those that are the most harshly and viciously condemnatory to homosexuals. We have to defer to the experts.” My answer to that was, “Drivel! We are the experts on ourselves, and we will tell the experts they have nothing to tell us!” Giving all views a fair hearing didn’t suit my personality. And the Mattachine Society of Washington was formed around my personality.
So we at the Washington Mattachine characterized ourselves within the movement as an activist militant organization. Those were very dirty words in those days in the movement, such as it was. You weren’t supposed to be militant. And we were, both in our actions and our goals. Our statement of purposes set out our goals, which were generally to achieve equality for homosexuals and homosexuality against heterosexuals and heterosexuality. Equality was the primary issue.
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.
November 14th, 2012
Uruguay has, since 2007, offered protection and recognition to same sex couples under a civil unions bill. It is now considering a law to offer full marriage. (AP)
Uruguay’s congress is considering a gay marriage law that would give same-sex couples all the same rights and responsibilities of heterosexual married couples.
…
The proposed “marriage equality” law would change Uruguay’s nearly-century-old civil code and give married gays and lesbians all the rights and responsibilities of heterosexual married couples, including the possibility of adopting children.It was drafted by gay rights activists in the so-called “Black Sheep Collective” and now has the support of lawmakers in the ruling Broad Front coalition, which decided Wednesday to debate the measure next week in the House of Deputies’ constitutional commission.
Naturally the Catholic Church opposes it.
And it what surely has to be considered for some award for truly astonishing arrogance and supremist attitudes, Bishop Jaime Fuentes had this to say: “Giving this kind of union the same obligations and rights as marriage would represent serious discrimination against a married man and woman.”
Oh, gosh, how dreadfully unfair. Idiot.
November 14th, 2012
Fear the power of fundraising spam!
Dear Jim,
The Homosexual Lobby is already lining up for their payoff. Within days of Obama’s reelection, the Homosexual Lobby is publicly reminding the president of all he owes them for his success. And they have something very specific they want: A presidential Executive Order to force through the Gay Bill of Special Rights.
You see, Obama has been threatening to sign this order for almost a year. It was only a massive out-pouring of protest from Public Advocate supporters that stopped him before. With your help, I was able to spread this story across the country alerting pro-family activists to Obama’s disgusting scheme. And he quietly backed down.
Uh huh.
November 14th, 2012
He tried this before, but it didn’t work out so well. So he’s trying again. Seriously.
Pastor Scott Lively of Springfield today announced the formation of a committee to explore the possibility of a run for the governorship of Massachusetts. A fifth generation Bay Stater, born and raised in the Village of Shelburne Falls, Pastor Lively was for many years a Christian missionary and social activist in various parts of the world, based primarily in Oregon and California. In 2008, following a year-long speaking tour through eight countries of the former Soviet Union, he and his wife Anne moved back to Massachusetts to start a mission to the poor and disadvantaged in inner-city Springfield. They bought a home in the heart of the troubled McNight neighborhood and opened a church and ministry center called Holy Grounds Coffee House, strategically located on State Street between the Downtown and Mason Square areas, to serve the homeless and street populations of the city.
…Pastor Lively is an internationally recognized authority on biblical values in public policy, serving as an educator, trainer and consultant to church, community and government leaders in more than 30 countries, and as a media figure in more than 700 radio and television interviews here at home. He is known as the “Father of the Ugandan Homosexual Movement” for his work in that country, and his efforts in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Baltics have strengthened both the Christian church and social resistance to the homosexualization of those regions. [Emphasis added].
I am officially speechless.
Update: He has now updated his faux-pas into something equally paternalistic: “He is known as the “Father of the Ugandan Pro-Family Movement” for his work in that country…” Still speechless.
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