Box Turtle Bulletin

Uganda Tries To Polish Its Brand

NTV reports that Uganda has hired an “international firm” to burnish the country’s image abroad, after a similar effort in 2007 failed in nepotism, corruption and scandal. Caleb Owino, a local advertising executive, applauds the move, saying (and I kid you not), “It’s very important that Uganda does something to systematically shape how the world thinks about us.”

Santorum Pwns “Santorum”

Yeah, I know. I’m sure the script calls for mud and not “santurum” getting spattered around. But surely someone in the campaign had the scatalogical reference in mind when they made this commercial. After all, they’ve spent their fair share of time complaining about Santorum’s “Google problem.” So please don’t tell me they had no idea anyone would think of it and laugh — and not necessarily at Santorum’s expense — after seeing this commercial. Please don’t tell me that they had no idea that in one fell swoop they’ve artfully linked Dan Savage to Romney as Romney trues to blast Santorum with disgusting goo. I really want to believe that this commercial is pure genius, and not further evidence of a major contender for President of the United States being hopelessly clueless. Please let me have that at least. I would be  ever so grateful.

Anyone Can Be A Victim (And Get Out Of Jail Free If You Act Fast)

The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009. (Click to download, PDF: 847KB/16 pages)

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 seventeen 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 eighteen 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 that the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill tries to divide the gay world between aggressors and victims. Clauses 5 and 6 detail how “victims” are to be treated under the law:

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.

(Note: 1 currency point is 20,000 Ugandan shillings, or about US$8.60)

From the very first statement of clause 5, it becomes immediately obvious that this is a huge get-out-of-jail free card for anyone who is caught in the act of same-sex relations (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”) and quick enough to be the first to claim that he or she is a “victim.” 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 is claim to be the victim, that the other person made you do it, and right away you are free from prosecution.

Not only that, but they’ll help you testify in trial that, yep, sure enough, you were the victim, not the perpetrator. Not only will you escape a lifetime in prison — or even the hangman’s noose — but you will be awarded compensation for all of your trouble.

In other words, this provision is an open invitation for anyone to try to escape serious trouble by claiming to be a victim in the whole mess, no matter how much consent or how little actual sex took place. And come to think of it, these clauses are more than just open invitations, they practically beg one partner to rat out the other, and through the compensation clause, the law will literally pay them for doing so. And the bill offers 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.

Bribe-taking throughout Uganda’s police and legal system is notorious, and the opportunities are rife for these two clauses to be abused in order to secure a conviction — as well as to let off scott-free anyone who may be in a privileged position to bribe or otherwise convince prosecutors into determining that they were the “victims.”

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”
Clauses 5 and 6: Anyone Can Be A Victim (And Get Out Of Jail Free If You Act Fast)
Clauses 7 and 14: Anyone Can “Aid And Abet”
Clauses 8 to 10: A Handy Menu For “Victims” To Choose From
Clauses 11, 14, 16 and 17: Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t Only To Report Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition

Eyewitness Gives Account of Raid On Entebbe

Dr. Hilda Tadria, co-founder of the African Women’s Development Fund, was giving a talk at the LGBT conference in Entebbe, Uganda that was raided by Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Simon Lokodo. She has issued this statement describing the raid:

At a hotel in Entebbe this week, I was subjected to an experience that I would not wish upon my worst enemy. I am a recently retired (but not tired) almost 70 year old married mother of two and grandmother of seven. For many years, I have trained and mentored young people in leadership skills and the art of advocacy, particularly in connection with the subjects of Gender and Human Rights. On Tuesday I was invited to facilitate a session on leadership, using the the Four Frames of Leadership to a group of sexual minorities. Another facilitator at the meeting was Hope Chigudu. Like me, Hope is a law-abiding married mother of senior citizenship. A few hours into my session, the Hon. Rev. Simon Lokodo—Minister of Ethics and Integrity—walked into the room.

The Minister introduced himself and proceeded to give a lecture on ethics and morality. In addition, he accused the gathering of being an illegal assembly ‘recruiting’ people into homosexuality, even insinuating that we were having sex in the meeting room. Then, in a strange twist of events, the Minister declared the meeting disbanded. Everybody was just told to go home. Kasha Nabagesera, activist and conference Convenor was threatened with arrest, while one of the participants who came from Sweden was challenged to explain how she had even entered the country. Soon after closing the meeting, the Minister was heard telling somebody over the telephone, “Yes, I have just disbanded them.”

Prior to his entry into the meeting, the Minister sent a message to the conference Convenor requesting details of the meeting. The program and all the training materials relating to the conference were sent to him, and the Minister asked to sit in on the proceedings. There being nothing to hide, the Convenor invited him to attend the meeting. Little did we know that the Minister would flare up in anger, make baseless accusations about the gathering and order the meeting closed. I was personally shocked by the action of the Minister, and the level of violent infuriation and intolerance he displayed. For a man of God, I saw no compassion, a great deal of prejudice and an utter unwillingness to listen. The Minister was too angry to hear good sense and simply failed to respond to any pleas for reason, ignoring both myself and Hope.

Reflecting on what happened on Tuesday, it is quite clear to me that the Minister over-stepped all boundaries of rational behavior. But more importantly, he blatantly violated the Law. In the first instance, every Ugandan has the right to assemble, speak freely and to have an education. This was a workshop convened to conduct training in skills that every citizen is entitled to. Secondly, although the Minister even went so far as to make the laughable claim that the gathering could have been planning a military coup or was plotting to disrupt national security, there is not an iota of evidence to support either claim. But I was most shocked that the Minister asserted that the government had all the right and the power to stop any kind of gathering that was taking place anywhere in the country; what a statement of arrogance and unbridled power! I find this wholly unacceptable and unsupported by any provision in the law. It is well known that if a gathering is to be stopped, there must be reasonable grounds to do so accompanied by the relevant legal documents, such as a court instruction or a Police order. The Hon. Minister was in possession of neither.

Tuesday’s actions by the Hon. Minister do not have any support in the 1995 Constitution of Uganda, or in any law known to me. Indeed, as I look ahead to the future Uganda that I want my grandchildren to live and thrive in, it is not the one I witnessed on Tuesday. Impunity comes in many guises; while the fascist actions of that day focused on a small group of activists, there is no telling who the target will be tomorrow. Autocratic government officials like the Rev. Simon Lokodo belong to an era I thought we had left far behind.

Despite earlier reports that Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera was detained by police, LGBT advocates in Uganda say that she escaped detention, although she may still be in hiding. According to the online news portal UGPulse, “Lokodo says as the person mandated to maintain good morals in Uganda, it was his duty to ensure people do not meet to discuss ‘immoral acts’ in public places like hotels.” Uganda’s Observer reports that Lokodo, a defrocked Catholic priest, claimed the conference gatherers were “planning violence” and were “gathered to recruit people into the practice of homosexuality.”

Sexual Minorities Uganda has condemned the raid:

SMUG condemns this outright abuse of office by the State Minister of Ethics and Integrity.

According to Frank Mugisha one of the Coordinators of the Capacity Development workshop and present at the time; ”Closing our workshop today totally violates our constitutional rights and this intimidation will not stop us from fighting, for equal treatment of all Ugandan citizens.” Frank Mugisha is the Executive Director of SMUG and 2011 Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award Laureate

The Minister also ordered the arrest of Kasha Jacqueline Nabagasera, the Executive Director of Freedom and Roam Uganda and 2011 Laureate of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders when she dared to challenge him for disrupting the workshop. Kasha with the help of colleagues was whisked out of the hotel to safety.

The State Minister’s actions are illegal and in direct contravention of the Constitution of Uganda, The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, among other international human rights covenants to which Uganda is a party. These human rights instruments all robustly promote and protect the rights to Freedom of Speech, Expression, Association, Peaceful Assembly and the Right to Information of all citizens and human beings, without discrimination.

Sexual Minorities Uganda strongly condemns this notorious and continuous attempt to prevent lawful and peaceful activities of human rights defenders in Uganda. Our campaign for equal rights is rooted in the fact that, as Ugandans, we are entitled to the respect and protection of the law just like all other Ugandans.

Actions:

1. We call on the Government of Uganda to protect the rights of citizens to peacefully assemble and associate as is guaranteed in our Constitution and in international human rights law.

2. We call on the Government of Uganda to protect all peoples within her borders against threats, violence and harassment by state and non-state actors, irrespective of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

3. We call on the Government and people of Uganda to reject the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill which would only serve to further violate international human rights law and plant seeds of hate, intolerance and violence in Ugandan society.

4. We call on the Ugandan people to reject the government’s move to use homosexuality issues to divert Ugandans’ attention from the most pertinent issues that are affecting the nation.

The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project has also condemned the raid:

The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) condemns this infringement on the right to freedom of assembly and association as provided by the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, and calls on the Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity to explain the grounds on which the actions were taken. EHAHRDP recalls the rights of human rights defenders to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without harassment or intimidation as provided by the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, February 15

Today is also Parinirana, or Nirvana Day, in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. It’s the festival marking the anniversary of Buddha’s death. In some areas, it was celebrated on February 8, but it’s mostly celebrated on the 15th. Buddhists celebreate the Bhudda’s death because it is believed that because he achieved enlightenment, he achieved freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth and therefore exited the experience of physical existence and its sufferings.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Edwin Cameron: 1953. As far as closets go, the outspoken Justice on South Africa’s Constitutional Court has obliterated the biggest ones: he’s gay and he’s HIV-positive. Justice Cameron was a human rights lawyer during Africa’s Apartheid years in the 1980s, where he co-drafted the Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV, co-founded the AIDS Consortium, and was the first director of the LAIDS Law Project. As Appartheid crumbled, he worked to safeguard human rights, including the rights of LGBT people, in the new Constitution of South Africa.

In 1994, President Nelson Mandela appointed him an Acting Judge of the High Court, an appointment that became permanent in 1995. By then, he had long been out of the gay closet, but in in 1998, after a poor black woman living in a township in Durban went on the radio to talk about having AIDS  and was killed three weeks later, he decided it was time to come out of the HIV closet. “I thought if [this woman], without any protection, living in a township, not behind a palisade like I do in my middle-class suburb in Johannesburg, not with the income of a judge, not with the constitutional protection… I thought that I should speak out…”

In 1999, he became an Active Justice on the Constitutional Court before being appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2000. In 2009, he was made a permanent Justice of the Constitutional Court by President Kgalema Motlanthe.

Maryland marriage bill out of committee

Reuters:

The House of Delegates’ Judiciary Committee and the Health and Government Operations Committee approved the measure 25-18 in a joint vote, a judiciary panel spokeswoman said. The measure is expected to go to the full House on Wednesday, she said.

Happy Valentines Day

I want to take a moment to thank Rev. Al Sharpton. On the issue of equality, Sharpton is not just saying the right words, he’s putting action behind them.

In Maryland, the factor holding back equality is race. Although Democrats control large majorities of both houses, there is a large black caucus. And in Maryland, black voters are not allies of the gay community and refuse to view disparities in treatment of citizens as discrimination or mistreatment under civil law as a civil rights matter unless the discrimination and mistreatment is directed towards racial minorities. The most vocal opponents of equality have been black ministers and there is about a 30 point polling difference between white Democrats and black Democrats on the issue.

Although the underpinnings of this hostility are old and have many complex contributors, anti-gay activists such as the National Organization for Marriage have deliberately played up and encouraged feelings of resentment. Falsely equating “civil rights” with “black rights”, they are deceptively seeking to suggest to black Marylanders that recognizing the equality of gay citizens is the same as unfairly grabbing what they have had to work so hard to achieve.

And the gay community is, like much of America, inadequately equipped to speak to the specific concerns of African Americans in an authentic voice. If we are to make inroads and find commonality and alliance with other communities, including the black community, we are stuck relying on the generosity of others.

And right now, Al Sharpton has stepped up and is using his voice and his reputation to lobby the Black Church and to speak to Maryland’s African American community. He is speaking not just as an activist, but as a civil rights advocate and, perhaps even more importantly, as a Baptist minister. Having someone of Sharpton’s status stand in for us may be the one ingredient that can make marriage a reality in Maryland.

I am very grateful.

Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”

The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009. (Click to download, PDF: 847KB/16 pages)

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 seventeen 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 eighteen 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” can land you a lifetime in a Ugandan prison. Given that, it’s hard to know how someone can 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. That’s ‘attempted aggravated homosexuality’! The State demands life!”

In an extraordinarily rare spasm of legislative wisdom, Uganda’s Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee appears to have thought the better of this provision. According to a Human Rights Watch report, “the committee states that provisions criminalizing ‘attempted’ homosexuality should be removed, rightly stating such allegations would be very difficult to prove.” However, the Eighth Parliament closed before the legislature could act on the committee’s recommendations. As of last week, when the original bill was reintroduced in Parliament, this nonsensical provision was reintroduced with the rest.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”
Clauses 5 and 6: Anyone Can Be A Victim (And Get Out Of Jail Free If You Act Fast)
Clauses 7 and 14: Anyone Can “Aid And Abet”
Clauses 8 to 10: A Handy Menu For “Victims” To Choose From
Clauses 11, 14, 16 and 17: Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t Only To Report Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition

Ugandan TV Coverage of the Raid on Entebbe

The report includes a grandstanding Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo, who summarily declared the meeting of LGBT leaders illegal despite the absense of a law making it so.  LGBT advocate Pepe Julian Onziema counters that there is nothing illegal about what they were doing. Clause 13 of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill would make meetings like this one illegal, but it hasn’t been passed by Parliament.  If Ugandan authorities can break up a private meeting without a law, imagine what would happen if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill passed?

Raid On Entebbe: Uganda Government Shuts Down LGBT Rights Conference

Kasha Jacqueline Nabageser

The African web site Behind the Mask led with the story this morning:

Kasha Jacqueline, the Director of Lesbian Rights group Freedom and Roam Uganda was briefly arrested today after a Ugandan cabinet minister staged a raid on a meeting of LGBTI activists and human rights defenders.

Activists at the meeting said police were deployed to ensure activists leave the premises. …Kasha’s close friends have since told Behind the Mask that she has been set free.

The cabinet minister’s raid forcefully stopped the meeting of LGBTI activists who had gathered for a capacity building workshop for human rights defenders.

The raid was personally led by Ethics and Integrity minister Simon Lokodo, a defrocked Catholic priest, who accused the gay rights advocates of “recruiting children into the gay life,” according to Behind the Mask. He also ordered the arrest of Kasha Jacqueline Nabageser, but she fled the hotel and was able to avoid Lokodo’s security guards.  Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, picks up the story:

“I have closed this conference because it’s illegal. We do not accept homosexuality in Uganda. So go back home,” Minister Lokodo told the participants.

Hotel staff had been asked by the organisers not to direct anyone to Elgon hall where the conference was taking place unless the person had been cleared. This would have required a phone call from the organisers.

The Minister said the hotel’s management apologized for hosting the event.

According to Daily Monitor, the conference was being held over the course of two weeks at the Imperial Resort Beach Hotel in Entebbe, and was due to wrap up today with an evening barbecue at the hotel’s pool.

Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo

Last week, Lokodo signed a statement posted on Uganda’s official press web site distancing the government from the Anti-Homosexuality Bill which had been reintroduced into Parliament. While he tried to distance the government from the bill, Lokodo also lectured the international community that “cultural attitudes in Africa are very different to elsewhere in world,” and that “the bill before parliament even if it were to pass, would not sanction the death penalty for homosexual behavior in Uganda.” Despite Lokodo’s statement, the death penalty is still firmly in place in the proposed bill. He also falsely asserted that “the main provisions of this bill were designed to stem the issue of defilement and rape which in the minds of Ugandan’s is a more pressing and urgent matter that needs to be addressed.” A look at the bill however makes clear that the issues of “defilement and rape” are little more than afterthoughts which provide a fig leaf to cover the bill’s direct assault against Uganda’s gay community.

It is not uncommon for the Ugandan government to violate the free assembly rights of its citizens. It has been a routine practice where political opposition leaders are concerned for several years. More specific to the gay community, Lokodo’s predecessor, James Nsaba Buturo, blocked the screening of a documentary film depicting LGBT human rights workers in December 2010 .

In 2011, Kasha Jacqueline Nabageser was awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.

Remember When You Could Beat Up Gay People And Nobody Would Bat An Eyelash?

Peter LaBarbera and North Carolina pastor Patrick Wooden reminisce over the good old days:

Wooden: My heart breaks and I literally mourn over what has happened to the NAACP. Ben Jealous says he has a brother who is transgendered in his family, the little boy grew up dressing like Diana Ross or somebody when he was a child, well I say his parents should’ve took the child and whooped the child’s behind and taught the child how to dress.

…

Wooden: If you want to get knocked out just go into a male bathroom in the African American community or any community I would think and you’re standing there in a dress and many times the people are trying to hit on people, trying to make sexual responses, one man there, you know, you don’t want to be in there feeling like another man is trying to look at your penis. We’ve always had a hostile response, or a disrespect if you will, for that kind of behavior.

LaBarbera: It used to be common of course, I’ve heard many stories. I remember a story from a military guy, saying a guy came and he was a sailor and they had some temporary little day off at port and some guy hit on him and he decked him.

Wooden: That’s normal.

LaBarbera: When you make a sexual advance against a man on man, that is a normal response, and yet I fear in the rise of political correctness what’s going to happen is, somebody is going to find out that there was a man in his wife’s—his wife was in the restroom when a transgendered man, a biological male, was in the female restroom and he’s gonna punch him, but then the man who punches him is gonna be charged with a hate crime, that’s what I’m afraid of.

Wooden: We’re not promoting, advocating violence here.

LaBarbera: Of course not!

Oh, well, of course not. But they were the gold old days Peter, weren’t they?

Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”

The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009. (Click to download, PDF: 847KB/16 pages)

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 seventeen 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 eighteen 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.

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 2010:

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.

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 recommended a sly change to the bill, removing the explicit language of “suffer(ing) death,” and replacing it with a reference to the penalties provided in an unrelated already existing law. That law however specifies the death penalty. 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:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”
Clauses 5 and 6: Anyone Can Be A Victim (And Get Out Of Jail Free If You Act Fast)
Clauses 7 and 14: Anyone Can “Aid And Abet”
Clauses 8 to 10: A Handy Menu For “Victims” To Choose From
Clauses 11, 14, 16 and 17: Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t Only To Report Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, February 14

Today is the traditional Feast Day of St. Valentine. Which Valentine is anybody’s guess. One tradition, as laid out in Legenda Aurea, has it that the day commemorates Valentine the Presbyter (also known as Valentine of Rome), although very little is known if him. Pope Gelasius I in 496 included him as among those “whose names are justly reverenced among me, but whose acts are known only to God.” It is said that he was martyred in about 269 during the reign of Claudius II, after having been arrested and imprisoned for marrying Christian couples who were then under persecution in Rome at a time when Christians were seen as a grave threat to civilization, to all the traditions that made the nation great, and to the natural order of things. But there is no written record of his being associated with romantic love until Geoffrey Chaucer wrote Parlement of Foules in 1382:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

(For this was Saint Valentine’s Day
when every bird comes there to choose his mate)

When the notoriously romantic Victorians got hold of St. Valentine’s Day in the nineteenth century, all hell broke loose on the love-dovey front, and it hasn’t let up since then.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
San Francisco Establishes Domestic Partnership Registry: 1991. The idea had been tossed around since 1979, when gay rights activist Tom Brougham proposed a new category of relationship called “domestic partnership.” His cause was taken up in 1982 by San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt, who had taken the seat of slain Supervisor Harvey Milk. Britt’s bill authorizing domestic partnerships was vetoed that year by Mayor Dianne Feinstein, It would be passed again in 1989, but that law was repealed by a voter initiative in 1990. Fortunately, that same year city voters approved Proposition K which established a modified version of domestic partnerships which allowed same-sex and opposite-sex couples to register. Fittingly, on February 14, 1991, the brand new registry was established in San Francisco allowing partners to register. San Francisco however wasn’t the first city to provide domestic partnerships. That honor went to West Hollywood in 1985.

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?

CPAC – anti-gays win the day, lose the war

As far as gay advocacy goes, GOProud is a joke. Their political message seems to consist of “We’re the good gays; we privately support some gay rights but we’re perfectly okay with you wanting to reinstate sodomy laws so please please love me and let me in the door”, a strategy that doesn’t seem to work. For anyone. Ever.

But as an organization, they have proven themselves useful. Being complete sellouts, they have made themselves indistinguishable from any other very conservative group other than one characteristic: they are ostensibly a gay group and do include visible gay members. And all things being equal, they are then valuable for identifying discrimination and bias that is based solely on that one distinguishing characteristic.

One of the claims of anti-gay groups is that they don’t hate gay people, they just oppose homosexuality. Many even object to being called anti-gay, noting that they have “gay friends” who understand and accept their traditional views. And as most gay groups, including Log Cabin Republicans, have a political profile that is not an easy fit with the far right (or any desire to be included in that circle), such claims could remain unchallenged.

So when GOProud was informed that they were banned from the Conservative Political Action Conference (or, rather, “not be invited to participate in a formal role for CPAC events”) there was but one way to translate the action. CPAC had put out a “No Gays Allowed” sign.

This isn’t even disputed. There’s not even spin suggesting that some other issue or matter was a factor. CPAC was delivered an ultimatum: ban GOProud or Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Liberty University, and Heritage Foundation walks.

The important thing to note is that this is not a matter of disputed beliefs – though there was the generic “they support the homosexual agenda” babbling. The objection was specific: GOProud is a gay organization and their views or policies were irrelevant. If GOProud isn’t comprised of the kind of homosexual of which they can approve, none exist. Just as Ellen Degeneres is not an acceptable spokesperson for JC Penny due solely to being gay, so too is GOProud not acceptable even in the room.

Which is interesting for two reasons.

First, their attendees disagree. This truly is an example of anti-democracy in action.

According to organizers, over half of the participants at the 2012 CPAC were under the age of 25. This is a demographic that generally is gay supportive. And while it is tempting to believe that CPAC youth make up that small percentage of youth who poll anti-gay, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Sources as diverse as US News, Forbes, and Michelangelo Signorile are all reporting that the CPAC youth are not even remotely interested in culture war, especially over gay issues. Forbes young Republican blogger Steven Richer tried to gage the response to banning GOProud from the youth attendees.

Fortunately I didn’t have any trouble eliciting remarks on this subject (sometimes at these political conferences you get the sanctimonious type who think they are already running for president or are head of Coca Cola Company, and say “no comment.”). The results:

Approximately 80% of those I spoke with thought that CPAC was wrong to exclude GOProud.

Signoreli found a general disinterest in the topic of gay marriage. Some legislators he spoke to had distinctly different positions (even historically revising their previous comments), and some had recently discovered that they have no position at all. And what little fire there was seemed contained in the die hards and the elderly.

That certainly appears to be true after speaking with younger Tea Party activists at CPAC and even with the college students the Mitt Romney campaign brought in. Many just don’t care about the issue or even support marriage equality, even as Romney made his promise to “defend’ marriage in his speech at CPAC.

Tellingly, the Gallagher-moderated event featured a five-person panel (including Gallagher) in which each member was over 50; four of the five were over 60, including Schlafly, who is 87. The audience of several hundred people for the event, held in the main ballroom, was predominantly over 50.

Meanwhile, outside in the corridors, the rest of CPAC went on with many of the 20- and 30-somethings, the future of the conservative movement, who obviously didn’t care enough to sit through it.

This suggests something that I think we have all instinctively known for a while; the far right anti-gay extremists have lost, and continue to lose, influence over even self-identified conservatives. Though they scream as loudly as ever, they represent fewer voters and politicians are very good about measuring trends and discovering their positions accordingly.

And the second item that I find interesting is that Republican candidates are willing to attend.

Some years ago, it become a political liability to campaign at Bob Jones University due to racial segregation in student dating. Candidates could not answer the question, “Why are you here? Do you tolerate these racist policies?”

CPAC’s position should elicit the same response. The outright ban on gays should have automatically disqualified the organization from consideration.

This is a no-brainer. Even Joe and Melba Sixpack like to think that they wouldn’t outright ban someone just because they are gay. And Melba likes Ellen’s show (Joe like Portia, but for entirely different reasons) and has no intention of stopping her Penny’s shopping trips.

And yet, as far as I’ve discovered, not one mainstream media reporter has asked, “Mr. Candidate, you say that you are not a homophobe. How do you reconcile that with campaigning at an even that bars participants based solely on their sexual orientation?”

I think that’s a question that should be asked.

Gregoire signs marriage bill

Governor Chris Gregoire has just signed the marriage bill, adding Washington to the list of US states that provide (to the extent of a state’s power) equality under the law to their gay citizens. Should there be no challenge, this law will come into effect on July June 7.

There will, however, be a challenge. The Family Policy Institute of Washington – with the full support of the Roman Catholic Church – is organizing a petition drive. Should they collect 120,577 valid voter signatures by July June 6, the vote will be stayed until it is either confirmed or rejected by the voters on their November ballot. The odds are pretty good, but not certain, that the signatures can be collected (oddly, they had difficultly in collecting signatures in 2009 to put domestic partnerships up to a vote).

New Jersey Senate passes marriage bill

The New Jersey State Senate has, as expected, passed the marriage equality bill. The vote was 24 – 16, shy of the 27 needed to override a veto. Globe:

Two Democrats and two Republicans went against their party lines in the vote. Sen. Jennifer Beck, a Republican from Red Bank, voted for allowing gay marriage. “It is my opinion that our republic was established to guarantee liberty to all people,” she said. “It is our role to protect all of the people who live in our state.”