Comments on: What Rick Warren, Scott Lively + Don Schmierer Did In Uganda Is Nothing New. Here’s Why That’s Horrifying

By: Wen

Wen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:09:18 +0000

@4: James, Im shocked to hear about that. Do you believe that all really could happen?

By: Trilasker

Trilasker — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:25:47 +0000

It’s incredible how the issue of homosexuality is polarizing the world. In these times, gays and lesbians can have children, so it’s not the end of the species. These religions that condemn it also say that people can choose their path in life, so why not let them choose to live as they feel they should? Gays don’t lead people astray. If people experiment and aren’t gay, their biology puts them back on track. The “evils” of the “lifestyle” are the evils of social repression. This bill makes no sense to me. The evangelicals who support it make no sense to me.

By: Rudy

Rudy — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:24:20 +0000

How ironic – the African preachers claim that homosexuality is “western.”
Truth is, the right wing Evangelical Christianity they embrace is the religion we taught to our slaves.

By: WillBFair

WillBFair — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:25:01 +0000

MithcNYC,
Thanks for that. It sounds plausible.
I wonder if it isn’t part of the shock of the oppressed, trying to shift the contempt onto others. I’ve seen it for many years in the looksism and age-ism in our own community. And it’s always made me incredibly sad that the oppressed will turn on others so quickly.

By: hephaestion

hephaestion — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:52:03 +0000

Ignorant Africans always say there are no gays in Africa. I have known 2 Africans from parts of the Congo and Burkina Faso where gays are accepted and honored. Africa has thousands of unique cultures in its vast area. Anyone who says all those thousands of cultures think the same way is VERY ignorant of African cultures.
Generally speaking, the homophobic parts of Africa are the parts most brainwashed by homophobic European and American missionaries. Read Malidoma Some’s writings on the gatekeepers.

By: hephaestion

hephaestion — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:45:33 +0000

Anti-gay religious quacks also set up shop in Russia and other eastern European countries after the fall of communism in the early 90′s. They heavily propagandize the weak & vulnerable. At first in Russia they were mocked for giving Bibles to people who needed bread, but then their bizarre lies and propaganda against gay people began to win favor with Russians. Russia was gay-ignorant-but-not-so-gay-hostile in 1990. Today, thanks to American rightwing anti-gay propagandists there, Russia has a sizeable number of people willing to bash gay people with metal rods.

By: tarxien

tarxien — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:30:02 +0000

President Zuma in South Africa is a strong supporter of ‘traditional’ marriage. So much so that he has just married his 5th wife and is engaged to a potential 6th!He divorced one and another committed suicide to get out of the ‘hell’ of being married to him. So he currently has 3 ‘wives’, presumably numerous ‘concubines’ or ‘secondary wives, and was almost prosecuted for rape a few years ago. I’m not sure how this fits with the US Evangelicals’ definition of marriage as ‘between one man and one woman.’ But I’m sure they will find a loophole for their tame bigots.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:01:19 +0000

Religion sells in poor, low IQ areas. Africa is a big target for all religions. Because America is smarter, religion is going out of business here.

Religion needs ignorance.

By: Trilasker

Trilasker — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:51:43 +0000

“All of this is sad given that many African pre-colonial cultures had traditions accepting homosexuality not unlike Indian and Asian cultures – usually a ‘third’ gender or selecting/allowing someone to play the opposite role. Missionaries drove such traditions out and replaced them with homophobia.”

@MITCHNYC, are African GLBTs able to collate this information into a defense against the anti-gays?

By: christopher di spirito

christopher di spirito — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:16:11 +0000

The New York Times is always late to the rodeo.

Unless there’s a restaurant in Kampala, Uganda that sells $175 hamburgers, they’re not interested.

In fact, the blessed New York Times was the last of the major, national dead tree dailies to begin using “gay” for homosexual. But they sure had problem letting Judith Miller turn her column over to Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon to whore Bush’s Iraq war.

By: romeo

romeo — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:03:14 +0000

This is an horrendous situation for our people in Africa, but we still have some options. One of which is an unrelenting spotlight on the “missionaries” here in their home base. It seems their power over Africa is money and the perception of their position in America. We must dig in and never let up on them. We must damage their credibility and their fundraising efforts at every turn. And we can start with those slimy bastards at Exodus and all the damage they already do to American gays with their lies and delusions. I do not for one minute believe they have any real problem with executing their fellow unrecalcitrant gays. It’s just that its bad PR now that people are talking about it. After all, they want anti-gay laws here as “behavior modification.”

We must take the enemies of freedom very seriously.

By: MitchNYC

MitchNYC — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:03:16 +0000

@WillBFair

I would reckon that AfAm homophobia stems from the same place, except one replaces ‘colonialism’ with ‘slavery/racism’.

There is also another layer in that in order to survive, AfAm’s needed to overcome vast ethic, cultural, and religious differences amongst themselves, as many slaves were purposefully separated from their fellow family members and kinsmen in the US. The glue of this cohesion was the church, whatever church that may have been.

All of this is sad given that many African pre-colonial cultures had traditions accepting homosexuality not unlike Indian and Asian cultures – usually a ‘third’ gender or selecting/allowing someone to play the opposite role. Missionaries drove such traditions out and replaced them with homophobia.

By: James

James — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:57:16 +0000

Here, in South Africa (where same-sex marriage is protected by the constitution) the US evangelicals have been flooding Zulu tribal leaders, as well as ANC officials with anti-gay propaganda. President Zuma has discussed the distinct possibility of rewriting the South African constitution (using the ANC majority’s power to do so); in order to delete “sexual orientation” as it stands, currently protected, next to “race”. The primary motivator seems to be the notion that homosexuality is an un-african, western import and therefor a colonial influence to be eradicated. And here eradicated quite literally means, killed.

By: WillBFair

WillBFair — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:27:05 +0000

People like Kaoma are one reason I converted to the Episcopalians. Check out his cool, precise, and elegant reasoning. It sings.
He’s smart to identify anti colonialism as a cause of African homophobia. I wish he would figure out what drives African American homophobia.
One disagreement with queerty. U.S. conservatives are not brilliant. They are vicious and cunning. We still have to beware of them, but I think it’s a distinction worth making. If they were brilliant, they would have seen through their own ethnic hatreds and self serving interpretations. And they would have been on our side long ago.

By: malcanoid

malcanoid — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:12:15 +0000

Well good for Kapya Kaoma. All strength to him and his argument. I hope he has some influence in convincing african leaders that the real post-colonial plot is the encouragement of homophobia, although the American right’s financial oiling of palms suggests he has little chance.

How can those people really think they are earning themselves a place in heaven? What happened to “Blessed are the persecuted”?

By: terrwill

terrwill — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:32:28 +0000

These scumbags are using their forays into the african
countries as a dry run for their wet dreams of enacting
such legislation in the United States, sort of like
Gay genocide with training wheels…………