After Americans Visit, Uganda Weighs Death for Gays

[t0dd]

KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

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.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.

Donor countries, including the United States, are demanding that Uganda’s government drop the proposed law, saying it violates human rights, though Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity (who previously tried to ban miniskirts) recently said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

The Ugandan government, facing the prospect of losing millions in foreign aid, is now indicating that it will back down, slightly, and change the death penalty provision to life in prison for some homosexuals. But the battle is far from over.

...

The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html?ref=global-home



"Scott Lively is responsible for stoking homophobic sentiments in Uganda to such an extent that Ugandan lawmakers, largely basing their reasoning on Lively's anti-gay viewpoint, introduced legislation to punish homosexuals with the death penalty"

Contact Scott Lively: http://www.defendthefamily.com/help/contactus.php

[donco6]

1. Fundy Christians exporting more hate. Fabulous.

They're earning their starry crowns in heaven by killing gay people. What a lovely religion!

[Initech]

12. I'm growing increasingly less tolerant of people who claim to be religious and pull this shit.

:grr: :banghead:

[varelse]

2. Why are those signs written in English?

[nsd]

8. English is Uganda's official language.

In 2005 Swahili was added as a second official language, but English is more widely accepted.

[varelse]

14. Thank you (nt)

[NMMNG]

3. Lying ********

I've had it up to here with those fucking lying assholes who preach murderous hatred and intolerance, then turn around and pretend they're innocent victims when called on it. :grr:

[JI7]

5. they claim you are persecuting them for not allowing them to kill gays

because their shitty ass religious is anti gay.

[NMMNG]

10. It must be horrible to be them

How they persevere in the face of such adversity I'll never know. :sarcasm:

[hyphenate]

4. Goddamned cocksuckers!

They can't shut the fuck up! I wish they could be returned to Uganda, and executed when any gay dies at the hands of the establishment for murder.

What fucking rotten bastards. We need to find a way to make sure their ignorance and hatred can be stopped. NOW.

[FiveGoodMen]

24. Agree with every word!

:toast:

[Nikki Stone1]

6. If it weren't for Rachel Maddow, we might not be hearing about this.

She did a series on this. Nice to see the NYTimes has finally picked up on it.

[Terra Alta]

11. Rachel rocks.

She ain't too bad looking, either. :-D

[Sapphocrat]

16. Nikki, I love ya, but...

...that's exactly what I mean downthread. Not just about Uganda, but about the trail of torture and murder left in the wake of Scott Lively, and of his contemporaries who have been propagating the hate in other countries for decades.

Why doesn't everyone know already? Why does it take Rachel Maddow (whom I adore, mind you) and the NYT before it pierces everyone's brain?

I'm not ragging on you, Nikki, I swear -- you are fantastic, wonderful, true-blue. Rather, I wonder if I haven't done enough to get this out in front of everyone.

Not that I believe for a second I can save the world (contrary to popular perception, my ego isn't that great) -- but I think: If I've known about this for so long, and Wayne Besen has, and Box Turtle Bulletin has, and...

What have we done wrong, that none of us has been able to bring this to the forefront of every lefty's consciousness, before it was too late?

What could any of us -- I -- have done differently?

:cry:

What is it... Image? Status? Does no one listen because I'm not as photogenic as Maddow? Because Wayne doesn't have the circulation of any NYT writer? Because BTB is just for gays, so why should anybody read BTB?

[Nikki Stone1]

17. Ok wait wait wait....

First, you're lovely and quite photogenic. :)

Secondly, I may just be looking at the wrong new sources. I have to admit this is the first time I've heard of Box Turtle Bulletin (and I know a lot of gay sources on the net so now I feel embarrassed....)

Finally, I haven't been watching the Fundies as closely as I should have been, although God knows I've been zeroed in on Captain Saddleback and his $2.4 million dollars this week.

The fundies operate under the radar except to their own weirdo flocks. I usually can't bear to watch or read them.

So, no it's not your fault. But now it's time to get the word out. Also, I am going to IM you.

Nikki

[Beaverhausen]

22. My thoughts exactly. This should be far more widely reported, as should...

...all the C Street news.

[NMMNG]

28. Some of us have been screaming about it for years

Only to be met with replies like "quit whining"/"I'm tired of hearing about your pet issues" and claims of "anti-Christian bigotry". It seems that only when the lofty MSM begins reporting it that can it be considered "real news". Sadly once the MSM moves on to another topic it will go back to being one of Teh Gays "pet issues". :-(

[Lex]

7. Christians spreading their hate and divisiveness around the globe.

Lovely.

[Sultana]

26. -1

Thx for the broad stoke

[NMMNG]

29. Oh?

Name one other religion that has individuals/organized groups that do nothing but tour the world for the sole purpose of instilling virulent, even lethal, anti-gay hatred in other nations.

[Progservative_n_SC]

33. Islam has some pretty tough rules on the issue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_topics_and_Islam#Homosexuality_laws_in_Muslim_countries

also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory

and yes their are other groups religious and otherwise that do the same thing

[NMMNG]

37. Islam is indeed vicious toward gay people

But Muslims don't tour the world telling others to hate gays. They don't have "missionaries" and clergy whose entire profession is spreading anti-gay hatred.

[Progservative_n_SC]

40. I would argue the point that

there are not Muslim groups and clergy not spewing anti-gay hatred but to be honest it would be a zero sum argument. Just beware of painting all Christians as fundamentalist who want to roll the world back to the middle ages. I have never heard an anti-gay smear sermon preached in my church. They frown on it don't get me wrong but they also say it is not for them to judge. Then again we basically stay out of politics except at an individual level.

[NMMNG]

41. I never claimed all Christians do it

(I know very well that many Christians either don't care one way or another, or even work to advance LGBT rights). I merely said that Christianity is the only faith that has individuals and groups whose sole purpose in life is to spread anti-gay hatred throughout the world. Muslims spew plenty of anti-gay hatred, but there are no Imams or Muslim "missionaries" who go on world tours for the sole purpose of doing so.

[Lex]

36. Did I say "all"? Nope. They are Christians. They are spreading hate.

What I said is true.

[Terra Alta]

9. I call for the death penalty for homophobic fundies here in America.

After all, people chose to be fundies. People don't chose to be homosexual. The world would be a much better place without homophobic, bigoted, racist fundies in it.

[DBoon]

13. they are like anti-semites in Weimar Germany

they are seeding the hate that will result in a horrible harvest

[Sapphocrat]

15. You know what's really sad (besides the obvious)...

...is that this is probably the first time the majority of DUers have ever heard of Scott Lively.

He's been spreading his filth all over the world, literally, for decades (e.g.: "Lecture on homosexuality to be delivered to Krasnoyarsk youth").

And I don't buy the bullshit that the "Americans" had no idea how much gas they were pouring on the hate-fire. They knew. They knew. Lively has already seen the results of his handiwork, year after year after year. Latvia is one of his favorite places to stoke the fire:

Annual “Latvia Hates Gays” Report

I also wonder how many people realize he's not just a radical anti-gay activist -- but a Holocaust revisionist as well?

See:

The Annotated Pink Swastika

"The Pink Swastika belongs to the Crypto History genre. It claims to reveal connections of people and groups explaining the course of events that have been neglected by or even covered up by establishment historians. A modern and related example is The New World Order written by Pat Robertson, televangelist, Republican Presidential contender, and founder of the Christian Coalition.

"Whereas Robertson's book attempts to show that modern government institutions such as the Federal Reserve Board arise from a conspiracy of occult Satanists and 'International Bankers,' The Pink Swastika attempts to show that Hitler's Nazism and the Jewish Holocaust are the work of homosexuals, and that the Nazi work is being continued by homosexuals in the United States. ...

"While Robertson wants to show that the Federal Reserve's mission is to weaken America economically so that a one world government will be accepted in preparation for the rule of the Anti-Christ, The Pink Swastika wants to show that homosexuals were responsible for Hitler's rise to power, the slaughter of 6 million Jews, and the modern neo-Nazi movement in America. ...

"That Hermann Goering liked exotic clothes and improved the appearance of his face with makeup is sufficient to brand him homosexual, despite his undoubted devotion to both his wives and his daughter. Rudolph Hess is not saved by his wife and children, nor is Hans Frank. Herschel Grynszpan, the Jewish youth who shot Ernst vom Rath in Paris in 1938, giving the Nazis an excuse for the 'Crystal Night' anti-Jewish pogrom, is painted as a homosexual prostitute, even though nothing about homosexuality was ever uncovered or mentioned until his defense attorney used it as a successful ploy to postpone indefinitely his trial for murder. ...

"With that word of caution, The Pink Swastika begins...

[David__77]

18. Scott Lively is a piece of shit.

He is a typical fascist "scholar," producing cheap theoretical support for an incipient right-wing mob.

[NMMNG]

20. I wonder how many people think he is just a "pastor"

who happens to also be anti-gay. The man tours the world pushing rabidly, lethally, anti-gay lies. He also publishes books full of those lies. That is his entire profession. It's only because he does this against gay people, and with his aura of authority as a "pastor" (which also gives him that special shield that religion has in our society), that he can get away with it.



http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=809
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/06/17/anti-gay-conspiracy-theories-debunked-by-christian-professor/
http://holybulliesandheadlessmonsters.blogspot.com/search?q=scott+lively
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/tag/scott-lively

[QC]

23. He is also a Holocaust revisionist. n/t

[FiveGoodMen]

25. THAT certainly fits!

Gotta forget about the last one so we can start the next one.

[QC]

30. He claims that the Nazis were all gay.

Of course, the Nazis brutally purged gay party members early on, but Lively somehow ignores that fact.

[ck4829]

19. Kick

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Of course, the organization named in the article Exodus

International is the same group that Donnie McClurkin speaks for. One of the groups he speaks for I guess. He's all over their website.

[Sultana]

27. White ppl!

[seeinfweggos]

31. dear jesus, please protect us from your followers

[liberal_at_heart]

32. There seems to be such a culture of death in Africa

It's one thing to understand the cycle of nature and that death is a part of life, but between the fundamentalist Christians and the fundamentalist Muslims there seems to be such a culture of killing. There is so much violence. So many rapes and murders. It's so sad. It's not enough that these people have to die from malaria and AIDS but to have people killing each other over religion is jut another nail in their coffin. So many kids are orphans because of war or disease.

[Nikki Stone1]

34. This is finally hitting the mainstream media. KNX had it on today.

They were not as hard on the American fundamentalist nutjobs as they should have been, but they covered it.

[KittyWampus]

35. what is the point of sowing discord in Uganda? What does Uganda have that's worth something to the

west?

[NMMNG]

39. It has poverty and desperate people

So give them a scapegoat, tell them you have the "solution" and viola! More easily manipulated soldiers for your little army.

[WildEyedLiberal]

38. What fucking pieces of shit - they knew exactly where that kind of rhetoric leads

They're just too fucking cowardly to admit that they actually want gay people dead.