Over the weekend, the New York Times published a fascinating feature exploring the links between US evangelicals and Uganda’s anti-gay bill. A snippet, describing how three American evangelicals gave a series of talks in Uganda’s capital about “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda”:
For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”
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Be sure to check out the full NYT piece. Also listen to the multimedia feature, including audio interviews with the bill’s creator and a Ugandan gay rights activist.
Left: US evangelical Scott Lively
Right: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
Evangelical Christian Scott Lively spoke at the 2009 anti-gay conference in Uganda. Watch this newly obtained video of Lively’s speech, via Box Turtle Bulletin. Following the conference, Lively bragged that he dropped a “nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda”:
In late December, a report suggested the Ugandan president may soften the anti-gay bill, following international outrage. But while the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” may be removed from the final version, the bill still poses a very serious threat to gay Ugandans:
Uganda’s ethics and integrity minister Nsaba Buturo said the revised law would most likely make life in prison the maximum penalty for offenders. “There have been a lot of discussions in government regarding the proposed law, but we now think a life sentence could be better because it gives room for offenders to be rehabilitated,” he said. “Killing them might not be helpful,” he added. (Read the full story)
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