Box Turtle Bulletin

A brief hello from Timothy

Hi guys.

Perhaps some of you noticed that I have not made much contribution to BTB in the past month. It isn’t because I’ve been captured by space aliens, joined an ex-gay ministry, or even been feuding with Jim. I’ve just been very very busy with my real job and have barely had time to even read the site, much less formulate opinion or research an issue.

I’ll be back. I promise.

And in the meanwhile, thank you to the other site contributors for the truly excellent coverage of events, presentation of stories that simply are not told anywhere else, and fair-minded analysis of what all of this means both to us personally and in context of the Culture War that rages over whether or not gay humans should be treated like other humans.

Timothy

Ugandan Presidential Aide Confirms Wikileaks Conversation

John Nagenda: "An accurate reflection."

Perhaps that headline should read “Former Ugandan Presidential Aide…”. There now appears to be a falling out between John Nagenda and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. The revelation via Wikileaks of Nagenda’s frank accusation that Uganda’s First Lady Janet Museveni is “ultimately behind” the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill would certainly provide sufficient cause for the split, but this article in Uganda’s The Observer points to a more substantial dispute that’s been brewing for some time. Go read the article for more background information, but as far as his comments concerning the First Lady’s support for the bill is concerned, Nagenda confirms the cable’s message:

In an interview with The Observer on Saturday, Nagenda admitted holding the said meeting with US Embassy officials and added that he maintains the views he shared with them.

“Yes; one or two words may be slightly different. I held a conversation with the political officer and it’s an accurate reflection in the sense that I said that the President is very strongly anti-gay, but I doubted that he would support such a bill. I did accurately predict that he wouldn’t support the bill. It was extreme,” Nagenda said.

“On the First Lady – it’s a long time ago – but what I meant is that she holds very strong views where she sees morality.”

Nagenda also said he advised the donors that their threat to cut aid because of the bill was “very stupid” because Ugandans would think they were out to fight the country, “so people would dig in their heels more by supporting the bill”.

He also had critical words concerning former Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo.

In December of 2009 as international controversy exploded over the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Nagenda published an op-ed in the government-aligned New Vision opposing the bill. The appearance of the op-ed in the pro-government newspaper was seen as a positive development at the time.

See also:
Feb 17, 2011: Wikileaks Posts Cables from US Embassy in Uganda Concerning Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Feb 17, 2011: More Wikileaks Cables on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 10, 2011: Wikileaks: Ugandan First Lady “Ultimately Behind” Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11: 2011: More On Ugandan First Lady’s Support For Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11, 2011: Wikileaks: Vatican Lobbied Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 12, 2011: Wikileaks on Uganda’s Homosexuality Bill: Museveni “Surprised” and Buturo “Obsessed”
Sep 12, 2011: Ugandan Presidential Aide Confirms Wikileaks Conversation
Sep 23, 2011: Ugandan First Lady Affirms Support For “Kill The Gays” Bill

Tennessee School Alledgedly Threatens Students Over Gay-Straight Alliance

Students at Sequoyah High School in Madisonville, Tennessee, have identified a need:

Just yesterday, students across the room would yell, ‘God hates gays,'” said (SQHS Senior Nathan) Carroll. “There is not going to be a gay club in this school. We don’t deserve it.”

Carroll says he has experienced bullying since the sixth grade, and so he and other students decided to try to start a Gay-Straight Alliance to serve as a support group. He and other students approached school officials about starting a GSA, but they were denied permission. They then decided to circulate a petition to gain support. Opposing students have also started a competing petition. The school’s principal, Maurice Moser, then announced over the school’s P.A. that any student found with a petitions would have the petition torn up and thrown away and the individual would be immediately sent to his office for further punishment. Another parent says:

“These students have been following policy and they approached the principal,” said Linda Sigler, who has two children involved in getting the alliance started. “They’ve done this petition and now the school is telling them if they continue with the petition, they will be suspended.”

Wikileaks on Uganda’s Homosexuality Bill: Museveni “Surprised” and Buturo “Obsessed”

The latest batch of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables reveals a fascinating look at U.S. diplomatic efforts to convince Uganda’s political leadership that killing gay people is lousy public policy. A batch posted on Wikileaks last February revealed that diplomats thought M.P. David Bahati, author of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill, operated with a “blinding and incurable” homophobia, and they discussed security concerns with LGBT advocates who were trying to head off the bill’s passage. They also described diplomats’ discussions with President Yoweri Museveni over U.S concerns about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, in which Museveni promised to head off the bill, but he also warned that international pressure could be counter-productive.

President Yoweri Museveni

The newest batch of Wikileaks cables reveals few new details about U.S. diplomats’ discussions with Museveni and his push-back against international pressure. Those cables are mostly dated December 2009 or later, and mostly reflect moves which were also publicly reported in the press. But one cable dated November 9, 2009, describes an October 24 meeting between Museveni and several U.S. diplomats. This would have been nine days after the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced in Parliament. The bill had been introduced as a private member’s bill by M.P. David Bahati, rather than by the more normal route of being a government-sponsored bill from a member of the President’s cabinet or the President himself. This cable does show that Museveni may have been caught off guard by the bill:

(Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs Johnnie) Carson also raised the issue of “anti-homosexuality” legislation recently tabled in Parliament. The draft bill, which is not sponsored by the Ugandan government, criminalizes homosexuality with proposed sentences ranging from imprisonment to, in some cases, death (ref. D). Recognizing that homosexuality is a difficult topic for Ugandans, Assistant Secretary Carson said the issue attracts a great deal of international attention and that passing this legislation will result in condemnation for Uganda.

Apparently unaware of the proposed legislation, Museveni said Uganda is “not interested in a war with homosexuals” and asked who was responsible for drafting the “anti-homosexuality” bill. When informed of the author by acting Finance Minister Nankabirwa, Museveni exclaimed: “But that’s a member of our party! We shall discourage him. It will divert us.” Museveni explained that Ugandans used to ignore homosexuality, blamed the legislation on western “advocacy” groups who call homosexuality a human right, and asked how Uganda should respond to the homosexual recruitment of young people. Assistant Secretary Carson noted that sexual exploitation of minors – whether hetero or homosexual in nature – was morally reprehensible and should be criminalized. Museveni agreed that criminalizing homosexuality between consenting adults “is going too far” and said Uganda should instead focus on protecting children from sexual exploitation.

Whether Museveni was actually caught off guard or his expression of surprise was for diplomatic consumption, no one can say. (Some observers suspect the bill may have been introduced as a private member’s bill in order to provide a safe distance for the government.) But what the public record does show is that Museveni subsequently warned a party conference to “go slow” on the bill because of its international implications. He also convened a special Cabinet subcommittee to try to come up with a solution to the controversy surrounding the bill. The subcommittee met on January 20, 2010, after which Ugandan media offered conflicting reports about the subcommitte’s recommendations. A cable dated February 4 describing a meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Henry Okello Oryem provides a small inside look at what actually happened during that meeting:

Oyrem also advised patience on the anti-homosexuality bill, stating that Uganda is trying to craft a “win-win” situation for all stakeholders without provoking a backlash in Parliament and with the public. He urged the U.S. and other international donors to “take time out to consider and appreciate” the perspective of Uganda and Africa in general, and said additional “noise” on this issue from the international community plays into the hands of those supporting the bill.

Asking his note takers to leave subsequent statements out of the Ministry’s official record, Oryem assured (U.S. Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero) that Cabinet is moving to quietly shelve the bill without agitating core members of the NRM caucus. He described the January 20 Cabinet meeting on the bill as a “free for all” that revealed the previously unknown positions of several Cabinet members. “Now we know who is who,” said Oryem, “and how to deal with it. It will be worked out.”

Another cable dated December 8, 2009 describes reactions among international donors to the proposed legislation, including comments by UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa, Elizabeth Mataka, and Sweden’s threat to withhold aid if the bill passes, both developments that BTB reported at the time. In the cable, Mataka is described as being alarmed not only by the draconian measures spelled out in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, but she was concerned about the bill’s controversy diverting much-needed attention away from the massive corruption that was draining AIDS/HIV funding from their intended recipients. Interestingly, the cable says that after Mataka spoke with M.P. David Bahati, she concluded that Bahati was not the main force behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill:

Mataka said the bill’s sponsor, MP David Bahati, appeared amenable to softening some of the most offensive aspects of the legislation. However, she questioned whether Bahati is the main force behind the bill. Ethics Minister Nsaba Buturo, who is actively promoting the bill, canceled his meeting with Mataka, leaving Presidency Minister Beatrice Wabudeya as the senior-most Ugandan official on the Special Envoy’s agenda. At the end of her meeting with the U.S. Mission, Mataka expressed doubts that she delivered her message on anti-homosexuality and HIV/AIDS to the right Ugandan leaders.

Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo

As we reported yesterday, another Wikileaks cable quotes a presidential adviser pointing the finger to First Lady Janet Museveni as being “ultimately behind” the bill. It’s unclear from the context whether being “ultimately behind” is intended to mean that the bill was her initiative, or whether she was placing her support behind the bill. The December 8 cable is silent on the First Lady’s role, turning instead to Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo, who had earlier issued an angry statement condemning international criticism of the bill. The diplomatic cable reported that Mataka’s parallel concern about corruption also hit a nerve:

Responding to allegations that the Ugandan government is “offering lip-service as far as corruption is concerned,” Buturo said such comments come from “individuals who either know the truth but choose not to say it or are unaware of what is going on.” Buturo accused foreign diplomats of failing to understand the “complexities of corruption,” and said it is unrealistic to expect the Ugandan government to single-handedly address “matters to do with morality.” Buturo said Ugandans should remind donors “that there is integrity to be defended and that threats are not the way to go. If one chooses to withdraw their aid, they are free because Ugandans do not want to engage in anal sex. We do not care.”

The diplomatic cable then went on to offer this assessment of Buturo as a “misguided minister”:

Buturo’s homosexuality obsession is rapidly undermining any credibility his office might have to oversee Uganda’s anti-corruption institutions. Local contacts continue to warn that international condemnation of the anti-homosexuality legislation – and threats to withdraw donor aid if the bill is passed – will further embolden the legislation’s supporters by fueling accusations of western cultural imperialism. We do not believe President Museveni shares Minister Buturo’s dismissal of donor aid, given that foreign assistance accounts for more than 30% of Uganda’s budget and nearly the entirety of Uganda’s HIV/AIDS response. The bill’s proponents clearly overlooked the impact of the legislation on Uganda’s efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. In private discussions with Ugandan officials, we continue to stress the bill’s offensive human rights aspects and the negative impact this legislation will have on HIV/AIDS prevention.

Buturo no longer holds the title of Ethics Minister, and he is no longer a member of Uganda’s Ninth Parliament. He appears to have been effectively sidelined politically after losing his seat in a chaotic primary election for the ruling National Resistance Movement. He was subsequently forced to resign his Cabinet post.

See also:
Feb 17, 2011: Wikileaks Posts Cables from US Embassy in Uganda Concerning Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Feb 17, 2011: More Wikileaks Cables on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 10, 2011: Wikileaks: Ugandan First Lady “Ultimately Behind” Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11: 2011: More On Ugandan First Lady’s Support For Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11, 2011: Wikileaks: Vatican Lobbied Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 12, 2011: Wikileaks on Uganda’s Homosexuality Bill: Museveni “Surprised” and Buturo “Obsessed”
Sep 12, 2011: Ugandan Presidential Aide Confirms Wikileaks Conversation
Sep 23, 2011: Ugandan First Lady Affirms Support For “Kill The Gays” Bill

Ecuador Closes 30 Ex-Gay Clinics

Ecuadorean authorities have so far this year closed at least thirty ex-gay clinics which claimed to “cure” homosexuality following allegations of torture and abuse by former  patients. One of those former clients, 28-year-old Paula Ziritt, said she was held for two years at one such facility in Guayaqui, which included three months in handcuffs while guards threw urine and ice water on her. “It was degrading, humiliating and horrible,” she said. Another former client was nineteen years old when he was forcibly taken by his father to a different clinic, where he was beaten, deprived of food, and also had buckets of cold water thrown on him. Authorities say that six clinics which were closed in Guayaquil were linked to evangelical movements.

Ecuador’s Health Ministry said they are working with the Interior Ministry to weed out the unlicensed clinics which are operating outside of Ecuadorean law. Some of these clinics are suspected as posing as alcohol and drug rehabilitation centers. Authorities estimate that as many as 200 such clinics may be operating in the country, and are asking members of the gay community to come forward with any information they may have. One provincial health director, Eva Cevallos, warns, “Obviously you can not cure homosexuality. These therapies involve malpractice and are unauthorized. They cause depressive disorders, self-destructive behavior, anxiety and may lead to committing suicide.”

The Daily Agenda for Monday, September 12

TODAY’S AGENDA:
AIDS Vaccine 2011 Conference: Bangkok, Thailand. HIV/AIDS researchers from around the world will convene in Bangkok for the AIDS Vaccine 2011 conference, which conference organizers say has become the largest global scientific conference focused exclusively on AIDS vaccine research. “While the recent Thai RV144 trial progress has been extremely encouraging, we still have a long way to go before an affordable, effective vaccine against HIV will become available. While current prevention tools can lower the incidence of HIV, we need a vaccine to prevent the 2,700,000 new infections each year. … Recent encouraging advances have clearly demonstrated that an HIV vaccine will only become a reality through continued scientific inquiry and international collaboration and partnership.” Speakers include prominent researchers from around the world, as well as José Esparza, the acting President of the Board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The conference continues through Thursday, September 15.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, 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?

We’re Never Going Back to This

I’ve heard antigays argue our relationships don’t merit recognition. I’ve heard others go further and declare the only legal recognition should be punishment.

I’ve sat through speeches calling our love immoral, and talking heads who think that if we can’t help our nature, then we ought just be celibate. I’ve read essays that deny our families by calling same-sex marriage just a “registry of friendships.”

I’ve heard some tolerant folk declare they don’t mind gays and lesbians as long as we don’t flaunt ourselves in public. I’ve learned this includes standing too close and rubbing elbows.

I’ve had to recall that even this level of intolerance is a win for us, that not long ago being gay might be a ticket to a sanitarium or a lobotomy. That even mentioning your partner could cost you your job. Then I remember that in many states it still could.

And the saddest part is that this second-class status is genuine progress. Our opponents call it going too far, call it ramming our agenda down their throats.

I thought of all this during Tom Ford’s adaptation of Chistopher Isherwood’s short novel, A Single Man. Watch this scene. It’s 1962, and George Falconer’s partner Jim is away visiting his family. George (played by Colin Firth) has been waiting all evening for Jim to call. Julianne Moore plays George’s best friend.

“The service is just for family.”

This is the life our worst opponents want for us. What they want our culture to go back to. What they consider the proper order of things. They might object, perhaps with truth, that they don’t wish on us this trauma and grief.They merely want us to be celibate, to avoid temptation, to stifle our chances for a loving partner.

But if we refuse to do that, we certainly shouldn’t expect to be family.

Wikileaks: Vatican Lobbied Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill

A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable dated December 15, 2009, reveals that the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican lobbied the Catholic church to oppose the proposed Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill. According to the cable:

Embassy Vatican has actively lobbied Holy See officials to take a stand against pending legislation in Uganda that would criminalize homosexuality and in extreme cases, even punish it with death (reftel). On December 11, after the Ambassador raised USG (U.S. Government) concerns, Cardinal Antonelli Ennio, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, reaffirmed the Church’s position that legal approaches to homosexuality are inappropriate. Antonelli admitted that he had not followed the Uganda controversy closely, but agreed that Catholic bishops there or anywhere should not/not support the criminalization of homosexuality. The Ambassador urged the Cardinal to make sure bishops in Uganda understood this. Embassy poloff followed up with the Cardinal, providing information about the bill and USG concerns about it

On December 8, DCM met with Monsignor Peter Wells, Assessor in the Vatican Secretariat of State’s Section for General Affairs (NSC equivalent) and raised these issues. Monsignor Wells expressed the Vatican’s view that the Church considers homosexuality sinful but does not believe it should be criminalized. Moreover, the Church is opposed to the death penalty.

…The Vatican likely will not want bishops in Uganda to support the criminalization of homosexuality, so Embassy efforts may well translate into Vatican officials communicating with bishops in Uganda to reaffirm the Church teaching that homosexuality is a personal moral decision, which should not be penalized in any way by judicial authorities. The Vatican, however, likely will shy away from instructing the bishops directly to denounce the bill, as bishops everywhere are given a lot of leeway in deciding how to conduct pastoral work in their own dioceses. Embassy Kampala may want to reach out to the Holy See’s Nuncio and to the President of the Ugandan Conference of Catholic Bishops to further underline USG concerns.

On December 10, 2009, the Vatican released a statement which opposing “all grave violations of human rights against homosexual persons,” particularly “the murder and abuse of homosexual persons are to be confronted on all levels, especially when such violence is perpetrated by the State.” The statement didn’t reference Uganda by name, but that last statement was taken as an oblique reference to the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Shortly before Christmas Day that year, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Uganda, Cyprian Lwanga, denounced the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill in his annual Christmas message from Rubaga Cathedral. That message was broadcast over several Ugandan television channels.

See also:
Feb 17, 2011: Wikileaks Posts Cables from US Embassy in Uganda Concerning Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Feb 17, 2011: More Wikileaks Cables on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 10, 2011: Wikileaks: Ugandan First Lady “Ultimately Behind” Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11: 2011: More On Ugandan First Lady’s Support For Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11, 2011: Wikileaks: Vatican Lobbied Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 12, 2011: Wikileaks on Uganda’s Homosexuality Bill: Museveni “Surprised” and Buturo “Obsessed”
Sep 12, 2011: Ugandan Presidential Aide Confirms Wikileaks Conversation
Sep 23, 2011: Ugandan First Lady Affirms Support For “Kill The Gays” Bill

More On Ugandan First Lady’s Support For Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Following our initial report yesterday on the leaked U.S. State Department cables fingering Uganda First Lady Janet Museveni as being “ultimately behind” the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a reader left a comment giving a link to the Wikileaks cable in question, and Paul Canning has more about the cable here.  The relevant section begins with a brief description of Paul Nagenda, whose December 12, 2009 column in the pro-government New Vision was seen as an encouraging sign that there were powerful vioces in the government against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.  The cable describes Neganda as “one adviser against many“:

The New Vision published a column by senior presidential advisor John Nagenda against the draft anti-homosexuality legislation on December 12. Nagenda is known for challenging prevailing political winds, and has previously advised President Museveni against running for re-election in 2011. His column compared the bill to McCarthyism and the Inquisition, and urged Parliament to vote against it. In a separate discussion with PolOff (political officer), Nagenda said the New Vision – which is edited by a Dutch national – initially refused to run his column, and agreed only after Nagenda threatened to never again write for the newspaper. Nagenda said he felt morally obligated to speak out against the legislation, and accused those behind it of obfuscating differences between homosexuality, rape, incest, and pedophilia.

Nagenda said President Museveni is “quite intemperate” when it comes to homosexuality, but that the President will likely recognize the dangers of passing the anti-homosexuality legislation. He said First Lady Janet Museveni, who he described as a “very extreme woman”, is ultimately behind the bill. He added that the bill’s most vociferous public supporter, Ethics and Integrity Minister Nsaba Buturo, is a “very bad guy” responsible for a campaign of mass arrests – known by the Swahili term ‘panda gari’ – during the early 1980s under the Obote II regime while serving as Kampala’s District Commissioner. Nagenda said Buturo is using the anti-homosexuality legislation to redefine himself and “will do anything in his power to be a populist.” He advised the U.S. and other donors to refrain from publicly condemning the bill as this fuels the anti-homosexual and anti-western rhetoric of the bill’s proponents.

The fear about outside pressure having a negative effect on efforts to block the bill were echoed by a human rights lawyer, described as the “only human rights lawyer working to defend Ugandan homosexuals against charges under pre-existing anti-homosexuality laws.” The lawyer urged the international community to publicly oppose the bill, but said that threats to cut assistance as Sweden had already done “is counter productive and emboldens those pushing the legislation.”

The cable also reveals that members of the local gay community expressed fears over their security in the hostile environment stoked by the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Members of the community were also very nervous over a very high-profile interview of LGBT advocate Valery Kalende that appeared on the front page of the main opposition newspaper, Daily Monitor.  According to the cable:

Local gay and lesbian activists pleaded with one member, Val Kalende, to reconsider a feature interview with the opposition newspaper the Daily Monitor. The Monitor ran the interview as the front page story, along with several photographs of Kalende, on December 12. Published under an anonymous byline, the article provides a striking and remarkably well-written portrait of Kalende’s struggle against rising discrimination and hatred. After describing her initial reaction to (M.P. David) Bahati’s anti-homosexuality bill, Kalende said: “for the first time, I am very scared.” Bahati’s bill, said Kalende, “is not about homosexuality. It effects everyone; my pastor, my friends. It is not about us gays. Homosexuality is not about sodomizing young boys. What about relationships among people who are not hurting anyone?” The Monitor interview included a sidebar that dispassionately provided the facts about human homosexuality – its history and universality – and thus implicitly debunked many of the most absurd claims made by the bill’s proponents.

The first lady’s strident support for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill goes directly against President Yoweri Museveni’s attempts to sideline the bill, pointing to a political division within the Museveni family. Another cable dated September 23, 2009, reveals, amid corruption allegations against the First Lady, that Janet Museveni has no ambitions to be President, preferring to remain “the power behind the throne,” and that the president is grooming his son to eventually take power:

(Ruling party insider Mike) Mukula said Museveni was increasingly patterning himself after Robert Mugabe and wants to position his son, Lieutenant Colonel Muhoozi Kainerugaba Museveni, as his eventual successor. Muhoozi returned from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in mid-2008 to assume command of the new Special Forces, a still-murky component – or potentially entirely separate unit – of the praetorian Presidential Guard Brigade comprised of all the PGB’s elite, technical, and specialized non-infantry capabilities.

However, Paul Canning points to an op-ed appearing in this morning’s Sunday Monitor questioning whether the first lady has truly given up presidential ambitions herself.

See also:
Feb 17, 2011: Wikileaks Posts Cables from US Embassy in Uganda Concerning Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Feb 17, 2011: More Wikileaks Cables on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 10, 2011: Wikileaks: Ugandan First Lady “Ultimately Behind” Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11: 2011: More On Ugandan First Lady’s Support For Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11, 2011: Wikileaks: Vatican Lobbied Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 12, 2011: Wikileaks on Uganda’s Homosexuality Bill: Museveni “Surprised” and Buturo “Obsessed”
Sep 12, 2011: Ugandan Presidential Aide Confirms Wikileaks Conversation
Sep 23, 2011: Ugandan First Lady Affirms Support For “Kill The Gays” Bill

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, September 11

TODAY’S AGENDA:

Pride Celebration Today: Peoria, IL.

AIDS Walk Today: Bathurst/Chaleur, NB.

Also Today: Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, Austin, TX.

Fr. Judge in the WTC lobby, moments before he died

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Most people instinctively flee danger. It’s a natural result of the instinct for self-preservation. But when American Airlines Flight 11, carrying 92 passengers and crew, struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center between the 93rd and 99th floors at 8:46 a.m., Father Mychal Judge ran directly into the crippled building alongside the firemen he served as department chaplain.

The Franciscan friar’s priory was located just across the street from the firehouse on West 31st st., and the firemen there knew him as a “man’s man,” able to swing an axe and bust through doors with the best of them. But when he was in chaplain mode with his simple brown Franciscan robe, he had a very different countenance.  “He could go into the firehouse, have a cup of coffee, have a meal, listen to all the talk, watch the ballgame, hear your problems, talk about anything you want,” Boyle says. “But when he said Mass in the firehouse, I always felt when he got to the Eucharist, he just transformed himself. He became like Christ. He was just so pious.”

A French film crew happened to be in the burning North Tower and caught Fr. Judge on film in what would be some of his final moments of life. His friend, Fr. Michael Duffy, remarked about one scene where the Friar is standing by the lobby’s plate glass windows watching bodies fall onto the pavement from the building’s upper floors. “And if you look closely at that film, you’ll see his lips moving,” Duffy says. “Now, for those of us who know him, he wasn’t one that talked to himself. He was praying. And absolving people as they fell to their death.” When the South Tower collapsed, the force of the implosion shattered the windows and threw Fr. Judge across the lobby. He died from those injuries. He was designated as “victim 001,” the honorary first official victim of the September 11 attacks; his body was the first to be brought to the coroner.

The photo of Fr. Judge's body being carried out of the North Tower became an early iconic image of 9/11.

After his death, it was revealed that Fr. Judge was a gay man who was, as all priests are supposed to be, adherent to his vows of chastity. Fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen said, “I actually knew about his homosexuality when I was in the Uniformed Firefighters Association. I kept the secret, but then he told me when I became commissioner five years ago. He and I often laughed about it, because we knew how difficult it would have been for the other firemen to accept it as easily as I had. I just thought he was a phenomenal, warm, sincere man, and the fact that he was gay just had nothing to do with anything.” Judge was a longtime member of Dignity, a Catholic LGBT organization that advocates for change in the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality. Judge reportedly often asked, “Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love?” His life was a testament to that kind of love that knew no bounds.

—–

Ron Gamboa, Dan Brandhorst and their 3-year old son David.

The South Tower’s collapse came about after United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into its southern facade at 9:03. a.m. On board that flight were Ronald Gamboa and Daniel Brandhorst, with their three-year-old son David. They were returning home to Los Angeles after a family trip to Boston. As newly adopted parents in 1998, the two dads had formed the Pop Luck Club, an L.A. support group for gay fathers, prospective fathers, and their children. Said Ken Yood, the group’s president in 2001, “Dan and Ron were gay dads when there were very few of us out there.  We saw a need for a resource for other prospective dads… and the Pop Luck Club was born!”

Ron and Dan were remembered as doting fathers. “I am so proud of the father he became,” said Dan’s sister, Dawn. “Nothing was more important than his family… and Ron was the best brother-in-law anyone could hope for. Sweet, precious, David learned love and compassion from his Poppa and Daddy.”

—–

David Charlebois, doing what he loved

David Charlebois had been born in 1962 in  Morocco during one of his father’s overseas assignments as a U.S. diplomat. His grandfather had been an auto mechanic who taught pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart auto mechanics a year before her attempted around-the-world flight. David graduated from Embry-Riddle aeronautical University in 1984 with a degree in aeronautical sciences, and joined American Airlines in 1991. Friends and family say that he loved flying more than anything else. He was an active member of the National Gay Pilots Association, and worked to change American Airline’s policies to include domestic partner benefits, and to change the company’s culture to one that was more inclusive and respectful.

David and his partner of fourteen years, Tom Hay, were well known in their Dupont Circle neighborhood. They lived the kind of charmed life that many people might envy, except David’s confident and centered manner rarely provoked such negative feelings. The couple had bought a large row hose and transformed it into one of the better houses on the block. When he wasn’t flying, David could be seen landscaping or walking their border collie, Chance.

As a pilot for AA, he flew mostly transcontinental flights out of Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport. The morning of September 11 probably started out very little differently from any other morning. David was first officer for Flight 77, which was one of his standard routes. But thirty-five minutes into this flight, hijackers stormed to cockpit and herded the passengers to the rear of the Boeing 757. The hijackers then turned off the plane’s transponder and made a u-turn near the Ohio/Kentucky/West Virginia border and began heading back to Washington. Limited FAA radar coverage in that area however made tracking the plane difficult until it re-appeared on Dulles’s radar. By then it was making a bee-line for the Pentagon where it crashed into the western side of the Pentagon at 530 miles per hour at 9:38 a.m. All 53 passengers, and six crew members were killed, along with the five hijackers. The crash and fireball penetrated three outer rings of the Pentagon’s western side, and killed 125 people on the ground.

—–

Mark Bingham with this mother

Mark Bingham managed to call his mother, Alice Hoagland, at 9:37, sometime after his plane, United Airlines Flight 93 bound for San Francisco, had been hijacked. He told her that three men who claimed to have a bomb had commandeered the plane.  Hoagland, who had been a flight attendant with United, called back late and left a voice mail message on Bingham’s cell phone telling him about the World Trade Center attacks and urging him to reclaim the aircraft. We don’t know whether he received her message or not, but his seatmate, Tom Burnett, learned from a phone call to his wife that two airliners had crashed into the twin towers. There is substantial that Bingham was among a handful of passengers who stormed the cockpit and brought the aircraft down into a reclaimed coal strip mine outside of Shakesville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. According to reconstructions from the flight recorder and cell phone calls, the passenger rebellion began in Bingham’s section of the plane.

That Bingham was involved with bringing the plane down surprised no one. One former employer remarked that Bingham was a man of actions but few words. “If I know Mark, he would not have said anything about what he intended to do. I remember him coming to work one day with a huge black eye. I asked what had happened, and he said two guys had jumped him and he had fought them off. I said that was dangerous – better to give them the money – but he would have none of it. That would have been him on the plane. He was not someone afraid to act.” A burly 6 feet 4 inches and 225 pounds, the amateur rugby player was in good company with other passengers on the plane: a former college quarterback, a weightlifter and a former paratrooper. Bingham and the other members of Flight 93 changed the history of hijacking forever.

In 2000, Bingham had been an early supporter of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) primary race against George W. Bush for the GOP nomination. Two weeks after the September 11 attacks, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) flew from Washington, D.C. to San Fransisco to deliver the eulogy for Bingham’s memorial service. “I never knew Mark Bingham. But I wish I had. I know he was a good son and friend, a good rugby player, a good American, and an extraordinary human being. He supported me, and his support now ranks among the greatest honors of my life. I wish I had known before September 11 just how great an honor his trust in me was. I wish I could have thanked him for it more profusely than time and circumstances allowed. But I know it now. And I thank him with the only means I possess, by being as good an American as he was.”

There is a more complete list of LGBT victims of the September 11 attacks here.

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

Wikileaks: Ugandan First Lady “Ultimately Behind” Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni

Tomorrow’s edition of Sunday Monitor,  Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, cites leaked diplomatic cables to report that Ugandan First Lady, Janet Museveni, was behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. According to Sunday Monitor’s reading of Wikileaks cables, Senior Presidential adviser John Nagenda revealed this to U.S. Ambassador to Uganda, Jerry Lanier:

In Mr Lanier’s comments which were leaked on September 1, by whistleblower Wikileaks, Mr Nagenda is quoted to have told the US embassy that President Museveni is “quite intemperate” when it comes to homosexuality, but the First Lady, who he described as ‘a very extreme woman,’ “is ultimately behind the bill.”

Mr Nagenda said [Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba] Buturo is using the anti-homosexuality legislation to redefine himself and “will do anything in his power to be a populist.” He advised the US and other donors to refrain from publicly condemning the Bill as this fuels the anti-homosexual and anti-western rhetoric of the Bill’s proponents.

Mr Nagenda further told the US government that the bill’s most vociferous public supporter, the ex-Ethics and Integrity Minister Nsaba Buturo, was responsible for a campaign of mass arrests – known by the Swahili term ‘panda gari’ – during the Obote II regime.

Mr. Nagenda verified the conversation with a Sunday Monitor reporter. In December of 2009 as the controversy over the Anti-Homosexuality Bill exploded on the international stage, Nagenda published an op-ed in the government-aligned New Vision opposing the bill. The appearance of the op-ed in the pro-government newspaper was seen as a positive development at the time.

The revelation that Janet Museveni is one of the driving forces behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill once again casts a light onto the influence that American-based Dominionist movements such as the New Apostolic Reformation and its Seven Mountains Mandate exerts in Uganda. Janet Museveni has reportedly spoken at several conferences around the world hosted by Ed Silvoso, and CEO of the International Transformation Network (ITN) and an apostle in C. Peter Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles. Silvoso has also been a guest of the Museveni’s at State House. Video of Museveni speaking at one such gathering can be seen here.

In 2010, Janet Museveni spoke at a youth conference at Kampala’s prestigious Makarere University and said, “In God’s word, homosexuality attracts a curse, but now people are engaging in it and saying they are created that way. It is for money… The devil is stoking fires to destroy our nation and those taking advantage are doing so because our people are poor.” More recently, she was the guest speaker at the inaugural dinner for members of the Ninth Parliament sponsored by the Ugandan Fellowship, a branch of the U.S.-based secretive group known as the C Street Fellowship or The Family. M.P. David Bahati, the author of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, had recent been elevated to chairman of the Ugandan Fellowship as well as caucus Vice Chair for the ruling party.

Janet Museveni is currently a member of Parliament representing Ruhaama County, located in the far southwest of the country near the border with Rwanda. She also holds a cabinet position as Minister for Karamoja Affairs. The restive Karamoja District is located at the opposite corner of Uganda, alongside its border with Kenya.

If this report is correct, it appears to indicate something of a schism within the Museveni family. Other cables posted on Wikileaks last February revealed that President Yoweri Museveni had assured U.S. diplomats that he would not allow the Anti-Homosexuality Bill to become law, and reminded them “that ‘someone in Uganda’, meaning himself, is handling the matter.” He also echoed Nagenda’s advice that too much outside pressure could backfire on his efforts to derail the bill. “Museveni warned outsiders of pushing Africa too hard on this issue, lest it create another hurricane,” the cable read. “Don’t push it, warned Museveni, ‘I’ll handle it’.”

See also:
Feb 17, 2011: Wikileaks Posts Cables from US Embassy in Uganda Concerning Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Feb 17, 2011: More Wikileaks Cables on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 10, 2011: Wikileaks: Ugandan First Lady “Ultimately Behind” Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11: 2011: More On Ugandan First Lady’s Support For Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 11, 2011: Wikileaks: Vatican Lobbied Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Sep 12, 2011: Wikileaks on Uganda’s Homosexuality Bill: Museveni “Surprised” and Buturo “Obsessed”
Sep 12, 2011: Ugandan Presidential Aide Confirms Wikileaks Conversation
Sep 23, 2011: Ugandan First Lady Affirms Support For “Kill The Gays” Bill

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, September 10

TODAY’S AGENDA:
“Love Won Out” Ex-Gay Conference and Demonstration: Sugar Land, TX. With Exodus International’s Love Won Out conference takes place today at Sugar Creek Baptist Church in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land, beginning at 8:00 a.m.  A few prospective ex-gays themselves will likely be there as well (some of the younger ones, undoubted dragged there by their parents against their will), although they will be in the minority. The ex-gay conference is mainly an all-day infomercial for the general public, specifically geared toward parents and other family members of gay people, as well as pastors and youth ministry leaders.  Truth Wins Out has teemed with Houston’s Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church for a protest outside of Sugar Creek Baptist Church beginning at 11:30 a.m. Click here for more information.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Grimsby, UK; Humboldt/Eureka, CA; Limerick, Ireland; Mankato, MN; and Peoria, IL.

AIDS Walk This Weekend: Bathurst/Chaleur, NB.

Also This Weekend: Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, Austin, TX; Folsum Europe, Berlin, Germany; and OUT Film Festival, Nairobi, Kenya.

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

Plane To Fly “It Gets Better” Banner for Ex-Gay Conference, but Ex-Gays Won’t See It

Exodus International is scheduled to conduct one of its Love Won Out ex-gay infomercial’s tomorrow at a Houston-area church. According to The Advocate, the It Gets Better Project will hire an airplane to fly overhead for an ex-gay conference near Houston tomorrow with a message saying that you can’t simply “pray the gay away.” I think that sounds like a great idea, except:

Exodus International’s Love Won Out conference is taking place this Saturday at the Sugar Creek Baptist Church, located near Houston. The plane is scheduled to fly around downtown Houston at noon Saturday …

Get a map and an alarm clock, fellas. The plane may be headed for downtown Houston, but Sugar Creek Baptist is nearly 25 miles away in Sugar Land. And everyone will already be safely ensconced inside the church at that hour, while nobody will be anywhere close to downtown Houston on a Saturday at noon (the weekend forecast: a “pleasant” 95 degrees and probably 195% humidity, with an air quality alert due to high ozone). If a plane flies a banner over a deserted downtown and nobody sees it, does it still send a message?

Why can’t anyone fly the plane over Sugar Land at 7:30 a.m. as people are pulling into the parking lot?

Confused Adults Find Children Confusing

My partner Will has enough nieces and nephews to field a baseball team. They’ve now begun calling me Uncle Rob.

It chokes me up.

It started with the girls. I’d been showing up at family events for a couple years, but Will’s family is very conservative (as was mine) and I’m not sure anyone officially explained who I am.  This summer, though, Will and I hosted  their Father’s Day celebration at our house. It was our first big event after finishing the kitchen remodel. Our home is an embodiment of two lives brought together, and it explained us better than any discussion ever could. A few weeks later, Will and I took his Mom out to a beachside cafe for her birthday. The girls (her grandkids) came along. It was meant to last an hour or two, but we hung out late into the evening.

Next time I saw the nieces, they called me Uncle Rob.

Recently, we joined the clan for Memorial Day.  I started hearing “Uncle Rob” from the nephews. Then as we left, Will’s brother — who opposes same-sex marriage, who disagrees with me on virtually everything, and yet with whom I feel an odd and unexpected bond — said to his boys, “Say goodbye to your uncles.” That was a stunner. Time seemed to stop for the moment I took me to register his words.

All this happened without lectures, debates, speeches, or explanations. A while back, Bill Clinton said something wonderful about America: “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.” That applies to gay people, too. The most devastating argument in the world is trivial next to our simple, open, matter-of-fact presence.

And so I’m aggravated when our opponents say marriage equality will confuse the children. NOM even created a political ad claiming such a thing. It’s called (wait for it): “Confused Children.”

NOM has a terribly low opinion of children. Kids are insatiably curious. They love to learn. They take in new wonders every day they get out of bed:

Clouds are water?

Mommy has a baby insider her?

Uncle Will loves Uncle Rob?

Kids ask questions, but only a cynic conflates being eager to learn with debilitating confusion. And, really, of those three items, which is the least baffling?

The real problem, I think, is that adults are confused. We can add same-sex marriage to the list of things that kids understand easily but many adults do not:  iPods, P2P file sharing, Justin Beiber. But while those grown-ups have to admit iPods do in fact exist, many of them deny same-sex marriage — or even romantic love — can ever happen. So of course kids who find it perfectly natural must be awfully mixed up.

Actually, it’s a nice logical scam: Your kids seem confused by same-sex marriage? That proves it’s confusing! Your kids don’t seem confused by same-sex marriage? That proves it’s confusing! And — bingo!— you’ve just insulated yourself from thinking new thoughts.

A recent Internet ruckus illustrates this perfectly. Stacy Trasancos, “a scientist turned homemaker and joyful convert to Catholicism,” raised a controversy with her complaint that she can’t even go to “normal places” without exposing her kids to immorality.  Some excerpts (with commentary from me):

At the pool this summer there were homosexual couples with children and, while I was polite as my own young daughters doted on the baby with two “mommies”, I also held my breath in anticipation of awkward questions – questions  I’m not ready to answer. My young daughters are all under the age of eight and they are not old enough to understand why a baby would have two women calling themselves “mommies”.

[Sounds to me like your daughters were fine. You were the one freaking out.]

When there were two men relaxing at the side of the pool unnaturally close to each other, effeminately rubbing elbows and exchanging doe-eyes, I was again anxiously watching my children hoping they wouldn’t ask questions. They don’t see Daddy do that with anyone but Mommy. We haven’t been back to the pool for a couple of weeks, except once but it rained. The truth is, now I don’t really want to go back…

[I love this phrase: effeminately rubbing elbows. “Ooo gurrrl — y’all  need to loofa!”  Though the bit about exchanging doe-eyes sounds bloody and gruesome.]

I can’t even go to normal places without having to sit silently and tolerate immorality. We all know what would happen if I asked two men or two women to stop displaying, right in front of me and my children, that they live in sodomy…

[Actually, no one lives in Sodom(y) anymore.  The town was destroyed for arrogance and inhospitality toward strangers.  Oh, the irony!]

Interesting how Stacy never tells us what her kids actually said or how they felt. This paean of alleged anguished concern for her daughters is actually all about her.

Now some antigays aren’t as frightened of talking to their kids as Stacy. Frank Pastore, for instance. He hosts the biggest Christian talk radio show in the country and advised his listeners on what to say to their kids about transgender Chaz Bono on Dancing With the Stars:

This is how I would approach it.

Because of Original Sin —

Stop. Here’s a good rule: A satisfying explanation can’t be more mysterious than the thing it’s trying to explain. I keep this in mind when people answer, “Where did the Universe come from?” with “God made it.” An explanation like that isn’t necessarily wrong, but it raises more questions than it answers, and it certainly doesn’t settle the issue.

Original Sin confuses me like that. I was never able to see the fairness, justice, or logic of it. Perhaps you have better insight than I do, but surely you’ll admit it’s no easy concept. Anyway, back to Frank:

This is how I would approach it.

Because of Original Sin we are screwed up in terms of our biology — the world is evidence, you know, there’s evidence of it getting worse and worse and declining, right?  We are not a cosmos, a universe, that’s getting better and better and better.  We’re decaying, okay, the whole entropy thing.  And then that Fall is also evidenced biologically:  we have diseases, we have cancers, we have children that are born with, you know, deformities and handicaps, right?

Okay, well in the Fall part of, you know, Satan screwing up with humanity was down to our genetic level and there are people who are born with – that are – you know, some boys look more like a girl, and you know you get the kids to agree that some kids in school like that, and you’ve got some girls who are more like a boy. Well, there’s times in which they want to act on that and so there are some boys who really like boys. And there are girls who really like girls and there are some who are – feel so strongly on that they want to have surgery and become that other gender.

And so that’s what Chastity Bono did and that’s how she became Chaz.  It’s all part of evidence of the Fall.

No wonder your kids are confused!

• Entropy is the reason for our culture’s decline [which nicely demonstrates Pastore’s misunderstanding of entropy].

• When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, He let Satan mess with our genes.

• Some kids look so much like the opposite gender they want to have sex with their own gender.

• Some kids want to have sex with their own gender so much they want surgery to become the other gender.

And that’s the more coherent part of his explanation.  The rest opens the door to questions like:

Is Entropy another name for Satan?

Do Uncle Will and Uncle Rob have cancer?

If kids have deformities because of Satan, just like gay people, do those kids go to Hell, just like gay people?

This all has to be more confusing — more terrifying — than, “”Chaz was born in a girl’s body but felt like a boy on the inside. When he grew up, he thought long and hard and probably prayed, talked about it with the people he loved, got advice from experts who know a lot about this, and finally changed his body to make him a boy on the outside, too.”

I hope no one inflicts Pastore’s explanation on my nieces and nephews. But if they do, it probably won’t matter. None of them will believe that Will and I love each other because we look like girls. If the power of our example achieves anything, it should achieve at least that much.

Barton: God Can’t Hear Prayers From The Senate Side of the U.S. Capital

You know, the evil Democratic side. Bad reception or something. I guess God isn’t so omnipotent or omniscient after all:

David Barton: I’ll tell you one of the things too we’ll never get right until we understand this: it is a spiritual battle. We’re told in Ephesians it’s not flesh and blood.  We’re dealing with spirits. And I’ll tell you out of Daniel, praying, why did that answer get delayed for twenty-one days? Because the Prince of Persia fought against it. There are principalities that sit over certain areas.

And I can tell this in the U.S. Capitol. When I walk from the House side to the Senate side, I cross the middle line of the Capitol, I can feel a different principality because they have jurisdictions over different things. And there are principalities that sit over the top of government entities that cause them to think really goofy. And you can’t get prayers through, they get delayed twenty-one days because the principalities are up there fighting in the Heavenlies.

Because we’re not fighting flesh and blood. And if you don’t understand this is a spiritual battle, and if you don’t understand there are really big principalities and powers sitting over places of power, whether it be banking or education. There’s principalities that sit over schools to keep those kids from getting knowledge, there’s principalities that sit over financial institutions.

Kenneth Copeland: They sit over households.

Barton: They sit over households. That’s why you have principalities and powers, that gradation. You have the corporals, and you have the sergeants, and you have the lieutenants, the captains and the generals. And the generals have a bigger principality and those little corporals may sit over the house but it’s a spiritual battle.

Copeland: It’s a battle, yeah.

Barton: It’s a spiritual battle and we’ll never win until we understand that.

[via Right Wing Watch]