Perhaps spurred by a passage to in India of a law banning gay sex last week, Uganda’s loathesome Parliament speaker Rebecca Kadaga finally made good on her year-old promise to pass the country’s anti-homosexuality bill by Christmas.
The bill was introduced in 2009 and was known at the time as the “Kill the Gays” bill because it prescribed the death penalty for cases of “aggravated homosexuality.” The “kill” clause was eventually removed after international outcry and is absent from the final version of the bill, which will now go to President Yoweri Museveni for approval..
“This is a victory for Uganda. I am glad the parliament has voted against evil,” the bill’s original sponsor David Bahati told AFP. “Because we are a God-fearing nation, we value life in a holistic way. It is because of those values that members of parliament passed this bill regardless of what the outside world thinks.”
For the record, the outside world thinks you’re a fucking asshole you should probably rethink such a harmful piece of legislation that further stigmatizes a marginalized population, putting them in even greater harm in an already virulently homophobic nation. Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda — thanks Great Britain! — but Bahati and fellow lawmakers felt the laws weren’t quite strict enough, especially with the welfare of the country’s children at stake.
How about we take this to the next level?
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“I stand by the bill. I will not withdraw it,” Bahati said in 2010. “We have our children in schools to protect against being recruited into [homosexuality]. The process of legislating a law to protect our children against homosexuality and defending our family values must go on.”
Speaking of family values, the anti-homosexuality law was passed only a day after Parliament okay’d an anti-pornography bill, outlawing anything that “shows sexual parts of a person such as breasts, thighs, buttocks” as well as “any erotic behavior intended to cause sexual excitement or any indecent act or behavior tending to corrupt morals.” That bill will also outlaw “provocative” clothing and will closely monitor what people watch on the internet.
Sometimes I think Uganda is secretly being run by the National Organization for Marriage. Or someone to that effect. Sigh. So Uganda is apparently not only against homosexuality, but sexuality in general. It’s a good thing Ugandans are so deeply religious as immaculate conception may be the only way to reproduce in the future.
2eo
Yet more christian genocide, and people think my hatred is pathological, the evidence is right here that it is morally just to hate christian beliefs, this is what they are.
AuntieChrist
@2eo: What is the alternative..? Islam..? Oh yea they are super gay friendly…They certainly aren’t going to convert to Judaism…Animism was their ancestral religion..It’s been banned. What the hell, we can’t help them, can’t change them…All we can do is sit back, shake our heads say tsk tsk tsk and make lame pointless comments online to show that we are paying attention.
Deepdow
@AuntieChrist:
The alternative is to charge every right wing christian extremist evangelical individual who travels the world in the hope of inciting governments to murder and jail gay people with CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
Case fucking closed.
the other Greg
@2eo: @AuntieChrist: It’s true that Uganda is hardly all Christian, they have a lot of Muslims too.
The most famous Ugandan, the charming cannibal Idi Amin, was a Muslim who was exiled to live in Saudi Arabia. (Is human flesh considered “halal”?)
AuntieChrist
@Deepdow: Don’t hold your breath baby…I’ve been to Africa and it is a scary place. I was mugged at the airport and the taxi driver drove off with my luggage…The government and police are corrupt and they don’t care one wit what the rest of the world thinks…All they care about is money, money, money…Human life means less than nothing to them…Just so much trash.
the other Greg
@AuntieChrist: You ask “what can we do?” Well maybe “we” can avoid being tourists in anti-gay places. What exactly did you go there to see, a pile of confiscated poached elephant tusks?
@2eo: Anyway, 2eo, our “moderately dour” friend, why didn’t you Brits do a better job civilizing these ooga-booga folks? You let the missionaries run amok and then just… stopped? Maybe you should give it another try?
2eo
@the other Greg: Well, I didn’t for the record, you Brits holds as much weight as me castigating you for the actions of Bryan Fischer because you are [I assume] American.
@Deepdow: Well said, it’s time the religious faced up to what they have caused, the moderates just do not exist, we keep hearing how accepting churches are, how accepting some jewish sects are, how accepting some branches of islam are yet it’s genocide in Africa, genocide in Russia, genocide in Timor, genocide in Syria.
Where are these moderates?
the other Greg
@2eo: That was a joke. But I would be all for raising another Union Army to invade the South again and re-impose Reconstruction!
@AuntieChrist: Here’s something practical to do (besides blog posts):
http://iglhrc.org/
2eo
@the other Greg: I tried for a joke, I just read it again and it just sounded like a rebuttal, it did sound better in my head.
the other Greg
@2eo: Maybe we can start a group to convert Uganda to a bunch of hard-drinking, Christopher Hitchens-style atheists. That’ll take awhile but you have to start someplace. “Some men see things as they are and say why – I dream things that never were and say why not.”
Lane103
Sadly some countries are destined to be third world countries forever…if this is what their leaders think will move them forward they are sadly mistaken…since there is no oil there…l the US won’t be bothered….
krystalkleer
lock’n up all the gay’s in a prison…isn’t a punishment…it’s a P-A-R-T-A-E! (insert obvious joke here) http://getoffmydress.blogspot.com/2013/12/ho-ho-hold-up-minute.html
Stache1
I remember when Rachel Maddow had David Behati on her show. She did her usual subtle but direct kind of interview. He came off looking like the genocidal buffoon that he is.
That country is corrupt to it’s core with a Idi Amin successor siphoning the countries resources into his own personal bank accounts.
With situations like this having a good scapegoat is mandatory.
Stache1
@krystalkleer: The joke is YOU.
Daniel-Reader
If they are not going to uphold international law on human rights, then the global LGBTA community is not bound to uphold any international law or treaty regarding diplomatic immunity, weapons, etc. and – as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – can take whatever measures are necessary to end the human rights violations against the LGBTA community. Count the number of politicians and religious leader committing mass human rights violations. Now count the number of people experiencing human rights violations. It only seems fair if they are going to vote on punishments, then the LGBTA community which vastly outnumbers them can vote on their punishment for committing mass human rights violations.
Spike
Someone better tell Tom Daley not to got to Uganda.
hephaestion
More than 400,000 Ugandans receive life-saving antiretroviral treatment funded by U.S. assistance.
Stache1
“Because we are a God-fearing nation, we value life in a holistic way. It is because of those values that members of parliament passed this bill regardless of what the outside world thinks.”
“Bahati argued that the law was needed to deter Western homosexuals whom he accused of “recruiting” Ugandan children. He said homosexuals from the West threatened to destroy Ugandan families and were luring Ugandan children into gay lifestyles.”
Of coarse this is completely absurd at every level. You can easily parallel it to the Jews back in Nazi times. The scary thing is that a majority of brain washed Ugandans seems to feel the same way.
Stache1
@Spike: Why do that?
2eo
@Stache1: The Nazi party were 100% christian in all their customs, beliefs and practices, in fact they went so far as to have “gott mit uns” as the motto for the SS, which means god with us.
Comparison is absolutely correct, these are exactly the same principles, in practice now in Africa, christian genocide.
AuntieChrist
@the other Greg: It was relief work handing out food and medications…I was not a tourist per se and all in all it was a hellish nightmare…Though on my way home I spent two days in Cape Town and it was awesome.
Hermes3X
we need to boycott Uganda coffee and any compamy that sells Ugandan coffee or uses it in their blends.
Robusta is indigenous, best know varieties are: Typica, Kents, Bugisu, FreshGround Uganda Mt. Elgon,
44 North Uganda coffee, San Diego Coffee Uganda Organic;
Ola’s Uganda Bugisu, FreshGround Uganda Mount Elgon.
These prominent retailers sell Ugandan coffee: uBuyCoffee.com; FreshGroundRoast.com; BeveragesDirect.com, San Diego Coffee (SDC.CO);
Callum
“Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda — thanks Great Britain!”
Do. Fuck. Off.
It wasn’t funny the first time and it’s not funny now.
pauleky
Seriously? They started this article with a joke?
Hermes3X
@2eo:
Sorry to tell you this 2eo, but the The Nazi party was anything but ” christian in all their customs, beliefs and practices”, in fact, Hitler and the Nazi’s were in the process of creating a new religion based on Teutonic legend and old Celtic rites and feast days. While the German population was overwhelmingly Christian, the Nazi party was not.
On the other hand,the words Christian and Genocide have always gone together. In the old Test. Yahweh instructs Moses’ followers to murder the the Canaanite inhabits of their “Promised Land”, then there’s, the mass murder of Celtic people in France and Germany who refused to convert, the crusades, the Inquisition and murder of the church’s largest creditor: the Knights Templar, the gays and witches burned at stake, and on and on. If you are in their sights, you should be very afraid of that ‘church’.
2eo
@Hermes3X: Quotes from Adolf Hitler, spoken and from works directly attributed to him.
“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
“I thank Heaven that a portion of the memories of those days still remains with me. Woods and meadows were the battlefields on which the ‘conflicts’ which exist everywhere in life were decided.”
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
“For by employing religious force in the service of its political considerations, the crown aroused a spirit which at that outset it had not considered possible.”
-Adolf Hitler on the state of Rome (Mein Kampf)
“Verily a man cannot serve two masters. And I consider the foundation or destruction of a religion far greater than the foundation or destruction of a state, let alone a party.”
-Adolf Hitler speaking like Jesus in Matthew 6:24 (Mein Kampf)
“Heaven will smile on us again.”
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Just because you want something to be untrue does not alter history, the Nazi Party was christian through and through, the SS was christian through and through, there’s no real evidence of the quest for the occult that has stood up to research. The empirical and absolute truth is not open for debate, it is exactly what it is.
Stache1
@2eo: That’s also why you have history revisionists like Scott lively desperately trying to convince people that the Nazi Party wasn’t Christian and was made up of homosexuals. A few were but later executed along with the rest of nations open gays.
The irony is that these same Christian Duchbags were instrumental in helping Uganda. If no one was looking it would’ve turned into all out extermination of coarse. Something they would’ve been proud of too.
Deepdow
@Hermes3X:
Actually, Hitler benefitted from the Christian Infrastructure – its hegemony – with regard to anti semitism AND in terms of securing power over the industrial and political elite.
Without Catholicism, Hitler had no power.
Also Jasenovac ! The Catholic church had its very own extermination camp in the Balkans headed by Cardinal Stepinac. It was THE MOST BRUTAL CAMP DURING WW2.
The more you know Bro !
jimbryant
Black women are very homophobic towards male homosexuality. In fact, women see male homosexuality as a threat to their ability to control men. It’s a gender war.
GeriHew
@jimbryant: Please grow up will you?
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/uganda-lesbian-attacked-mob-she-rushes-bi-woman%E2%80%99s-aid300813
jwtraveler
@AuntieChrist: I don’t think you can judge an entire continent of 57 countries and a billion people by one bad experience. And really, what do most Americans care about? Money, money, money. The Republican Party is dedicated to turning the US into a third-world country by extracting as much money as they can from the poor and impoverishing the middle class so the wealthiest 1% can get richer and richer.
jimbryant
Women fear male homosexual attractions but they fear them even more if they exist in men who also find women sexually attractive. Such men are liberated from female control and thus represent a threat to women’s privileges, such as the ability to control men’s behavior through conditions placed on sexual consent.
It’s no surprise that the prime architects of anti-gay legislation in both Uganda and Russia are women.
Stache1
@jimbryant: Uh no. That would fucks like Scott Lively, David Behati, and Martin Ssempa.
Hermes3X
2eo: “…revisionists like Scott lively desperately trying to convince people that the Nazi Party wasn’t Christian and was made up of homosexuals….”
He is only partially right, because as soon as the Nazi Party was through with their homosexual leaders (Night of Long Knives) they murdered them and the Christian leaders, well those who were dissidents, were eventually imprisoned. The Nazi’s used Christians and Christian rhetoric only as much as it was of use to them.
Deepdow: “…Without Catholicism, Hitler had no power…”
I think that’s an overstatement, since Germany was primarily Lutheran. “Without Christians, Hitler had no power.” is more like it. And that is the my whole point. The Christian cult was developed by Paul, following along Hellenistic thought, as his way to power and celebrity, the cult was organised and codified 300 years later by another pagan, Emperor Constantine, as a way to control slaves (esne, the masses, what ever you want to call ‘them.’) And, just as Hitler and Uganda have proven, Christianity is a dangerous and evil tool that is too often used to incite violence and wickedness.
2eo
@Hermes3X: What exactly is christianity if not rhetoric?
It is literally completely rhetoric, it is nothing but, completely and absolutely.
the other Greg
@Hermes3X: This is an odd obsession of 2eo, who is otherwise one of the most rational people here, where he insists on taking everything Hitler said absolutely at face value. As you say, it was often propaganda. Such statements don’t necessarily reflect what Hitler *really* believed about anything. What you say makes sense to me; Hitler’s intense interest in Norse mythology probably indicates his ultimate plans. Fortunately we’ll never know!
For a minor contemporary example, we don’t assume that Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz really believe every dumbfuck statement they are making about “Duck Dynasty” to the Christian yokels. (Although Sarah Palin probably does.)
For a MAJOR contemporary example – yes, Uganda. The anti-gay pogrom there is very much a Christian thing (the Muslims don’t seem to be much involved, though not objecting). What to do about it is another thing. Comparing them to Hitler probably won’t bother them very much. They might even like it!
manjoguy
So, in Uganda we get prison. And Islam will have us stoned to death. Somebody please tell Barack Obama that some of us don’t believe Islam is the “religion of peace.”
Hermes3X
@the other Greg: I have to agree that the Bobby Jindals and Ted Cruzs are more like Hitler or Paul, in that they don’t necessarily believe in everything they spew but say those things in order to attract converts and followers. Sarah Palin is just plain dumb, like Duck Dynasty dumb. She might ‘believe’ and have ‘faith’ in what she spews, but it is really all in her own self interest, but being poor at politicking, we assume she believe in everything she spews, when in fact, she might just be too dumb to know what to spew to get the most credence. All considered, for her level of intelligence, she has kept herself at the forefront for much longer than other right-wing nut of the day.