Uganda's queer politics garnered some protest this week.

The government demonstrated sheer idiocy this week after it admitted the nation's gays are hit - and help spread - HIV/AIDS, but then went on to say health officials won't help treat or educate them. Why? Because the Ugandan government believes gays have no place within their borders.

Well, hoping to raise awareness, three gay activists stormed an AIDS conference in Kampala today - and ended up behind bars for the trouble. Hurray for public displays of democratic repression!

The Ugandan government blows our mind. Though they acknowledge that the nation's gays are a part of the HIV/AIDS problem, officials still refuse to treat them:

[The government] said on Monday it would not focus any of its HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes on outlawed homosexuals because the east African country is short of funds.

"Gays are one of the drivers of HIV in Uganda, but because of meagre resources we cannot direct our programs at them at this time," the chairman of the Uganda AIDS Commission, Kihumuro Apuuli, told reporters in the capital Kampala.

State-sponsored programs will instead focus on sex workers, army folk and truck drivers. Vroom-vroom.

Of Africa's 53 nations, 38 outlaw homosexuality. That's nearly 72% of the continent.

As gay rights movements rise across the various nations, the editors of To Have and to Hold: The Making of Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa chatted with a number of activists to explore their respective nation's gay progress. One of questions posed ponders the possibility of reform. Here's a taste of the responses:

David Kato (Uganda): If we begin asking for marriage now our mission will backfire. They will think we’re just looking for sex. What we need is to be tolerated and to have the same rights as other people … to break down discriminatory laws.

Linda Baumann (Namibia): One of the challenges that we face is that people are afraid to be seen. You can count on your hands the strong gay activists in Namibia who are out and proud and able to speak.

Naome Ruzindana (Rwanda): Rwanda is a sensitive country. This is true even of the human rights defenders who are there. They fear the government and they have not helped us at all. Is there potential for these kinds of changes in Rwanda? Maybe in 10 years!

And even that would be a miracle…

Uganda's gay activists came out loud and proud last year. Their government and countrymen, however, would rather stick them in the closet. We recently chatted with Sexual Minorities Uganda leader Frank Mugisha to learn more about growing up gay in one of Africa's most homophobic nations. It's not as blakc and white as one may think.

Andrew Belonsky: Can you describe coming out to your family?

Frank Mugisha: I did not come out to my whole family. My Dad died when I was age 7, so me and my brother were raised by my mother. I did not come out and tell my mom that am gay for a long time. I did not know how she would react, because I had never heard her mention anything against or in favor of LGBTI people. She never mentioned any thing at all, even when the topic came up on TV or on radio. I went single sex boarding school and unlike other parents who warn their children about homosexual acts in school, my mother never mentioned anything about gay people.

At age 17 I came out to my younger brother, because he asked a lot of questions and some how found out that I am gay. He asked me and I told him the truth. He was age 15 then. He did not mention it again until he was 18, then he made it a big deal and thought it was funny. He made fun of me, but with humor. For instance, when we would meet a cute boy with a nice ass, he would tease me and say, "Does he turn you on?" He still does, but we are very close and he supports me a lot.

AB: How did you get involved in activism?

FM: I developed the idea of starting a gay organization after fully accepting myself as a homosexual man. The idea of starting this LGBTI organization was given momentum in 2004, when I found out that there was an organization called Icebreakers Manchester. I contacted one of its volunteers - David Armstrong - and he gave me the moral support and courage to carry on with the idea.

That’s when my mother came face to face with my sexual orientation. I told her I was gay and this is what I wanted to do. At first she did not object, nor did she support me. A few months after realizing how determined I was to carry on with activism, she tried to talk me out of it, but I said that I wanted to go on. I had only one year left to finalize my bachelor's degree and I was free do as I please after my studies. I graduated in 2005, with Second Class Upper Honors Degree and that’s when mom stopped the hassle about my activism.

I also started to come out to my friends. I had tried earlier, but I lost almost all my friends who I had told that I was gay. By the way, most of my relatives don’t talk to my family because of me.

AB: What did you learn - as a child - about gay people? What were you taught?

FM: I was raised a Catholic. My brother and I went to all boys school until college. At home I wasn’t taught any thing good or bad in regard to gay people, but at school I was taught how bad it was to be gay and how sick and sinful it was. My class mates and school mates had all the bad names for gay people or people who were rumored to be gay. At school there was no choice: if one was rumored to be gay, he was expelled immediately. I stayed very far away from any one who was rumored to be gay or any one who made advances on me, because I did not want to be suspended or face humiliation. I wanted to be close to some one who felt like me, but, it was a sin. I thought maybe it was true: I am abnormal…

I prayed to God so many times to take it away and heal me. I made bets with God as a child I asked Him in my solitude that if He takes it away I will double the times I go to church. I asked God for a sign, a dream, a vision to take it away, but I never received any… Even now there are days when ask my self and wish there was a pill I could take to change the way I feel. However much we fight for our rights, even if we get the rights, there are some people who will never understand, there are people who will see us different and continue to hate us.

Scrooge has got nothing on the Rt. Rev. Nicodemus Okille! The Ugandan bishop used his Christmas sermon to spread some good old fashioned homophobic rhetoric. From Uganda's New Vision:

The bishop, who was delivering his Christmas sermon at St. Peter’s Church of Uganda Tororo on Tuesday, said the acts violate both the biblical teachings on marriage and African culture.

Okille criticized the advocates of gay rights, saying they had no place in the Kingdom of God.

“These are acts to question the ordinances of God. There’s nothing like ‘intellectualizing’ sin; sin is sin. How do you imagine a woman sharing the same bed with a woman or a man with a fellow man?”

Apparently Okille doesn't have much of an imagination…

Okille went on to say that the church has an obligation to resist the homo scourge. Because Jesus would want it that way.

Ugandan national Mayanja Nkangi sure does have a lot to say about the gays. And none of it's good.

In addition to deriding our sexual habits as "weird" and claiming there's no human right for humping, Nkangi offers this tidbit of political criticism:

A citizen's responsibility for the national interest cannot be shifted. Homosexuals, lesbians, and their cohorts are, in this respect, avowed libertines without regard for the national or public interest.
…
Uganda must not recognise, sanction, protect or promote sodomy or lesbianism by legislation or otherwise. And gay and lesbian practices are ill winds which blow nobody any good; not even themselves, if only they knew.

Sorry, Nkangi, but our blows are great.

Uganda can't quit its anti-gay ways. The African nation's police reportedly got rough with a gay activist this weekend:

A member of the staff of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) Africa regional office in Johannesburg was assaulted by Ugandan police on Friday as she was trying to enter an event at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kampala.

Victor Juliet Mukasa, a leading Ugandan LGBT human rights activist who was appointed to her IGLHRC post last month, was trying to gain access to the “People’s Space” at CHOGM.
…
"[Police] threw me down,” Ms. Mukasa told SMUG. “Those who came back to help me from the ground faced it tough. One person was caned for doing so.”

After taking down Mukasa, coppers continued to block the bent boys and girls after taking down Mukasa. At least seven frustrated activists were sent home, but vow to keep fighting the good gay fight. Love that self-determination!

Uganda's rapidly become the epicenter of the gay rights battle in Africa. As closeted queers come out for freedom, government officials seem poised to pass homophobic legislation. The politicians may not want to listen to lavender activists, but they should definitely pay attention to this HIV-related op-ed:

Because gay men meet discretely, their wives would not know it and are therefore content that they are "safe"… gay men are a particularly high HIV-risk group, and they are totally ignored by AIDS education campaigns… I share the view that, at the end of the day, in sexual behavior, just like in other social activity like drinking and eating, Africa is not much different than the West.

What?! Whoa. Our worlds have been rocked to their core. "Goodbye colonial ideology, hello future!"

Uganda's anti-gay politicos are upping the hateful ante ahead of this month's CHOGM summit. A number of head parliamentarians are urging the government to use the biennial meeting of Commonwealth Nations to crack down on Uganda's gays. Said MP Ishaa Otto during a press conference Monday:

CHOGM is an opportunity for the government to send a clear message that gays are not welcome in Uganda. It's unfortunate that the government is silent as if there is nothing happening. The society must rise up against homosexuality before it's too late
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The government should urgently table a new bill that criminalizes homosexuality with punitive amendments that guarantee arrests to prevent the spread of gay practices.

Otto isn't alone on this one. MP Ssebuliba Mutumba warned that leniency for the lavender set will lead to a "morally corrupt society". Too late.

President Bush missed a golden opportunity when he chatted with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni.

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