Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said Thursday that it has uncovered evidence that the Bush administration has funded groups in Uganda that actively promote violence and discrimination against lesbians and gay men.In a letter to U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Mark Dybul, IGLHRC criticized the funding and asked for assurances that future will not be used to support homophobic organizations anywhere in the world.
The details:
The primary instigator of the backlash, said the IGLHRC, was Pastor Martin Ssempa, leader of the Makerere University Community Church and spokesman for the Interfaith Family Culture Coalition Against Homosexuality in Uganda.Ssempa organized an August 21 rally in Kampala at which more than one hundred demonstrators, including several government officials, demanded official action against LGBT people.
Ssempa has called homosexuality, "a criminal act against the laws of nature," and has said that, "there should be no rights granted to homosexuals in this country."
According to the U.S. Embassy in Uganda's website, Makerere University Community Church received a grant under a program designed to provide funds for AIDS prevention, treatment and care programs in Africa.
Ssempa and his coalition, which includes Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Evangelicals, have threatened the safety of Ugandan LGBT rights activists by posting their names, photos and addresses on a website.
With support from conservative organizations such as Family Watch International in the United States, Ssempa has launched attacks not only on homosexuals but on Uganda's women's rights and HIV activists as well, the IGLHRC said...
The IGLHRC also said it found that the Uganda Muslim Tabliqh Women's Desk has also received a grant under the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to implement HIV programs in Masaka District.
Recently, Muslim Tabliqh youth announced a plan to form an 'Anti-Gay Squad' to fight homosexuality in Uganda.
On 28 August 2007, Sheikh Multah Bukenya, a senior cleric in the Tabliqh Organization, was quoted during prayers at Noor Mosque in Kampala as saying that his followers are "ready to act swiftly and form this squad that will wipe out all abnormal practices like homosexuality in our society."
Basically, our tax dollars are being given to Muslim and Christian brownshirt groups who threaten to kill gays and lesbians in Uganda. But hey, they're faith-based organizations and that's what counts, right?
Politics
Comments
Just to play Devil's advocate here - is it possible that the administration funded the groups because they do good anti-AIDS work, in between gay-bashing and attacks on women? That might show a failure of due diligence on the part of the administration, in not discovering the dark side of these groups before handing them cash, but would be much less sinister than funding with full knowledge.
Easier to fix, too, if we can point out a mistake instead of accusing them of a crime - though the current administration record on admitting mistakes is not all that encouraging.
Posted by: BobApril | October 18, 2007 10:08 AM
Ssempa has called homosexuality, "a criminal act against the laws of nature," and has said that, "there should be no rights granted to homosexuals in this country."
Umm, isn't the accepted rhetoric no special rights for homosexuals?
Posted by: Tracy P. Hamilton | October 18, 2007 11:11 AM
Umm, isn't the accepted rhetoric no special rights for homosexuals?
In this part of the world, yes. However, this is a retreat from the older position of not allowing gays even the right to exist. Some other places haven't even got that far yet, hence feel no need for the qualifier.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | October 18, 2007 1:09 PM
I blogged the Ssempa rally here.
Posted by: Bartholomew | October 18, 2007 1:17 PM
You don't really think this is limited to Uganda do you? The Bush Administration is funding plenty of groups here in the United States that are anti-gay through the same "faith-based organizations" rhetoric, and just because they are not actively stirring up anti-gay sentiment right now (though many of them are), that doesn't mean that they won't in the future.
Posted by: J | October 18, 2007 1:39 PM
I side with Geraldo. A mustachioed fool, whom everyone recognizes as a fool, is better company than a historically revisionist foaming-at-the-mouth liar.
This is Michelle Malkin from May, 2006, complaining about Latino protestors' claims that the U.S. took half of Mexico in the Mexican-American war.
They aim to mainstream the "Stolen Land" mantra and pervert history.
Malkin's claim that an honest statement about the U.S. forcibly taking half of Mexico for it's own is a "perversion" of history is jingoistic patriotism at its best. Now that she's quit her TV job, let's see if we can get her to quit her column-writing gig.
Posted by: James Hanley | October 18, 2007 2:01 PM
How is this any different than all the support the US gives to anti-abortion supporters in other countries?
Posted by: paul | October 18, 2007 4:59 PM
I am reminded of Tom DeLay's comments on the slave-labour regime in Saipan; at a speech there, he was reported to have said that this was a model for what he and his colleagues wanted to see done in America, but mean nasty people wouldn't let them. Things like this come dangerously close to making political paranoia unneccessary; the reality is worse.
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | October 19, 2007 4:26 AM
The Religious Right in a much greater threat in Africa than they are in the US. There is little differance than Christian Fundimentalists in Africa and the Taliban,
Posted by: George Arndt | October 19, 2007 8:09 PM