Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The nation of Uganda appears ready to relive the Idi Amin era of brutality. Jim Burroway has the details on this astonishingly vile piece of legislation under consideration, the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009:
The proposed bill would:* Reaffirm the lifetime sentence currently provided upon conviction of homosexuality, and extends the definition from sexual activity to merely "touch[ing] another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality."
* Create a new category of "aggravated homosexuality" which provides for the death penalty for "repeat offenders" and for cases where the individual is HIV-positive.
* Criminalizes all speech and peaceful assembly for those who advocate on behalf of LGBT citizens in Uganda with fines and imprisonment of between five and seven years.
* Criminalizes the act of obtaining a same-sex marriage abroad with lifetime imprisonment.
* Adds a clause which forces friends or family members to report LGBT persons to police within 24-hours of learning about that individual's homosexuality or face fines or imprisonment of up to three years.
* Adds an extra-territorial and extradition provisions, allowing Uganda to prosecute LGBT Ugandans living abroad.
Incredible.
Politics
Comments
Egad. If this passes, do we prepare for a Ugandan diaspora, or a Ugandan pogrom? (The former would be preferable but neither is appealing...)
Posted by: Squiddhartha | October 26, 2009 9:14 AM
Well, look on the bright side: those poor put-upon Christians who have lost their right to "criticize homosexuality" now have a place to go where they can get their rights back.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 26, 2009 9:38 AM
As usual, missionaries will have blood on their hands.
Because frankly, when it comes to this barbaric infringement on human freedom, it was the missionaries who planted this nefarious idea in the Ugandans' heads.
Posted by: Katharine | October 26, 2009 9:39 AM
Wait, Uganda has laws that it is capable of upholding? Who knew.
Posted by: Nils Ross | October 26, 2009 9:40 AM
Based on wikipedia, more than 80% of ugandians are christian.
I think phelps would like the place....
So much christian love....
Posted by: diegopig | October 26, 2009 9:43 AM
Blood for the Blood God!
That seems to some up these pentecostals and their approach to Christianity. A pity GamesWorkshop got to it first.
Posted by: Julian | October 26, 2009 9:58 AM
Uganda has laws?
Posted by: Katharine | October 26, 2009 10:10 AM
Of course Uganda has laws. It's in Africa, not on Mars.
Posted by: Philbert | October 26, 2009 10:29 AM
Thanks for covering this and for pointing out BTB's link. Here's a bit more on it:
http://tinyurl.com/uganda-anti-gay
One thing people are working on now, rather quietly, is trying to get bing gay in Uganda to be adequate to have someone get political asylum/refugee status. There are people, activists, etc., who will die in Uganda soon because they are gay.
Oh, and the repeated comments about the lawlessness of Uganda are not helpful. Ignorant, yes, but not helpful. Not everywhere is run exactly like Canada (substitute your favorite Western Nation for Canada). Not even Canada is run like Canada.
Posted by: Greg Laden | October 26, 2009 10:34 AM
gah! That should be sum up.
Posted by: Julian | October 26, 2009 10:40 AM
Sounds an awful lot like Paragraph 175 from Germany, especially during the Nazi era...
Posted by: Rose | October 26, 2009 10:42 AM
Well, now we know where we can send TRUEKKKRISTIAN.
Thanks for doing the legwork, Ed.
Now, let's start a collection for airfare. Maybe we can get enough to send the whole Phelps clan too.
Posted by: FastLane | October 26, 2009 10:57 AM
"Oh, and the repeated comments about the lawlessness of Uganda are not helpful. Ignorant, yes, but not helpful."
You can add 'racist' to that list, by the way. African Christians seem to come under attack by the left in ways that would be intolerable if targeted at African-American Christians, or African non-Christians (ie, it was racist to portray Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose, but just fine to make the same jokes about Sarah Palin's Kenyan pastor, Thomas Muthee). This is especially grotesque since Uganda, almost uniquely in sub-Saharan Africa, managed to control its HIV epidemic thanks to the Christians in the Ugandan government and their promotion of abstinence and monogamy.
Which is not to say that this particular law is not loathsome (it is) and does not deserve international scorn (it does), and that Ugandan gays don't deserve asylum elsewhere if this law is enacted (they do - and I suggest extradition treaties with Uganda be looked at very carefully, as well). But some the reflexive 'Africa, the Dark Continent' Christian bashing by secular liberals smacks of colonialism, a desire to take up the 'white man's burden' and 'civilize the savages', and that needs to stop.
(Also: isn't sending Fred Phelps out of the United States forbidden by the Chemical Weapons Convention?)
Posted by: mad the swine | October 26, 2009 11:17 AM
...(ie, it was racist to portray Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose, but just fine to make the same jokes about Sarah Palin's Kenyan pastor, Thomas Muthee).
The important diffference you're ignoring here, is that Muthee's actual words and actions reinforce that negative stereotype far more than Obama's. Your unspoken implication that both of these people should have been treated the same -- because they're both black? -- makes you sound kinda racist yourself.
...Uganda, almost uniquely in sub-Saharan Africa, managed to control its HIV epidemic thanks to the Christians in the Ugandan government and their promotion of abstinence and monogamy.
Citation, please?
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 26, 2009 11:51 AM
Raging bee: Mad The Swine is correct. While it is appropriate to want a citation, it is also worth noting when people suddenly need such a thing on an internet discussion. It often reveals something about that person's bias.
There is a paper from a few years back which is where you should start your research on the relative success in Uganda of curbing HIV/AIDS, by Rand Stoneburner and Daniel Low-Beer. Check the International Journal of Epidemiology of 2004. I believe the paper is Open Access.
Posted by: Greg Laden | October 26, 2009 12:14 PM
Citation, please?
Uh...he links to an article with citations. (Don't know how accurate it all is, but it's cited.)
Posted by: Solly Hofman | October 26, 2009 12:28 PM
That was my immediate reaction. The US. Needs to provide asylum.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | October 26, 2009 12:34 PM
I think saying 'Uganda has laws?' is much like saying 'Somalia has laws?' or 'Afghanistan has laws?' or 'North Korea has people with a full belly?' or 'Hypothetical Christard Americastan has women?'.
Inasmuch as it's a comment on generally how crap their government is.
Because let's face it, though there are some awesome people in Africa doing some stuff to push it forward technologically (there are some awesome people at the universities in Kenya, for example, who are putting together labs with donated lab equipment), their politics blows ass.
Posted by: Katharine | October 26, 2009 12:46 PM
Okay, there was a citation, which I'd missed. Sorry about that. Looking at the article, I see the policies that reduced incidences of HIV was a LOT more complex than just "promotion of abstinence and monogamy." And it wasn't just Christians getting behind it either.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 26, 2009 1:05 PM
@ 4, 7
Careful now, your racism is showing!
(Hurr, hurr, those silly third-world countries! It's not like they have laws or anything, and even if they do, nobody cares about them anyway! Only in the enlightened West could we close down the prisons because everybody and their mum were honest law-abiding citizens! Hurr hurr!)
Oh, for real. Way to be racist arseholes, guys.
Posted by: Sara | October 26, 2009 2:21 PM
I am amused by this conversation.
mad the swine: Christians are doing good things in Uganda.
Raging Bee: Prove it, yo.
Other people: He already has.
Raging Bee: Well, non-Christians are doing good things too!
Ugh, just admit that Christianity is at least one step above the Eye of Sauron and move on.
Posted by: Brandon | October 26, 2009 3:17 PM
"That was my immediate reaction. The US. Needs to provide asylum."
The EU probably already does.
Posted by: Suricou Raven | October 26, 2009 3:37 PM
Brandon, that's a misleading simplification of the conversation. Bee apologized for missing the citation, and then said that Mad the Swine's summary of the findings wasn't quite accurate, considering that the anti-HIV policies enjoyed broad political support.
Posted by: Matt | October 26, 2009 4:08 PM
Short version of the bill: Naaaooo Pooftas!
Posted by: edw | October 26, 2009 4:44 PM
About the Wikipedia page on HIV/AIds in Uganda... it says it claims the basic of the program is ABC, Abstain until marriage, Be Monogamous, and if A and B fail, then use a condom. This is a HUGE different from "abstinence ONLY." Abstinence is a legitimate way to prevent STDs, obviously... but, since people on average have much more than one sexual partner in a lifetime, it is important to teach them how to reduce their exposure beyond simply saying "don't do it!"
So, mad the swine, I'm afraid I think you were misrepresenting the actual information. This is not a faith-based initiative. This is a reason based initiative. This is a promotion of abstinence and monogamy not of any religious conviction, but out of the pragmatic necessity of curbing an epidemic.
Posted by: Adam | October 26, 2009 7:19 PM
If you want to see something really quite disgusting, go look at the tripe on the Dienekes Anthropology blog, which is now saying lesbians must be either ugly or psychologically traumatized and that gay couples with children is 'experimenting'. I'm an ally of LGBT people and also a science major and I think Dienekes' assumptions are nothing short of fallacious and disgusting.
1) Maybe gay people have higher rates of being crapped on by their parents because their parents knew they were gay or because even if they were in the closet they were hurt by their parents' views on homosexuality?
2) ... dude, gay humans have been rearing kids for just about ever.
I find it kind of disgusting that Razib links to that dude, but then again, Razib is one of those right-wing types, even though he's secular.
Posted by: Katharine | October 26, 2009 7:34 PM
Kataharine @ 3:
Jeez, more anthropology. You talk as if Ugandans are children who cannot make decisions on their own and it's the Bad Christian Man's fault if they fuck up. There are plenty of places that are more Christian, have had more missionaries and get along with gays just fine (or just about fine...)
Posted by: Louis B. | October 26, 2009 7:44 PM
Regarding Uganda's "ABC" program, there was a TED talk by Emily Oster that speaks to this. According to her, it isn't what you think. See http://www.ted.com/talks/emily_oster_flips_our_thinking_on_aids_in_africa.html
Posted by: Theobroma Cacao | October 26, 2009 9:47 PM
I'll note that even some conservative American Christians are speaking against this measure (the first is the same as on Box Turtle, the comments are the interesting bit though be ready to throw something safely on some of them).
Posted by: Erp | October 26, 2009 10:02 PM
Hmmm ... Chocolate! [drools] - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | October 27, 2009 1:20 AM
Ugh, just admit that Christianity is at least one step above the Eye of Sauron and move on.
I don't know; I don't think Sauron had a problem with gay people.
Posted by: Jeff Eyges | October 27, 2009 3:31 AM
A gag involving Sauron and 'pink-eye' suggests itself here, or perhaps something about "Queer eye for the Uruk-Hai". - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | October 27, 2009 7:19 AM
This is one more example of why we need comprehensive international human rights treaties backed up by global sanctions on offending regimes, and enforced strictly.
Until then, if Uganda passes this thing, the US should put it into the same category as North Korea for economic purposes: no trade, no aid, no nothing, with the exception of taking in refugees and escapees from the regime.
Meanwhile we in the US and elsewhere can tell our own anti-gay bigots, "If you don't like gays, move to Uganda." The wonderful irony being the fact that many of the anti-gay bigots are also overt racists, so the cognitive dissonance will make their heads explode.
Posted by: g347 | October 27, 2009 7:47 AM
I always assumed Uganda was too busy with the LRA to worry about anything else...
Posted by: wazza | October 27, 2009 9:42 AM
Why not look on the bright side? We can get a nice big list of all the people who support this bill, get them all into a spaceship, and blast them off somewhere off the planet. Preferably somewhere like the Sun.
Posted by: 3rdweqd | October 27, 2009 4:15 PM
This seriously bothers me. It's so backwards! I can't believe a country in this day and age can be trying to pass such hateful and harmful legislation. Unbelievable!
Posted by: Josh | November 5, 2009 9:04 PM
The answer is clear - let us send all the fundamentalist so called christians who are anti - gay to live in Uganda offering their place in our countries to persecuted ugandan gay and lesbian people and give them citizenship to ensure they are protected from extradition.
I cannot believe so many people are standing silent on this - Uganda should be denied any rights to anything, anywhere in the world if this goes ahead. Not only that but they should be compelled to accept that sexuality is a human rights issue no matter what their ministers think.
We once before allowed uganda to trample its own population it is high time that world invervention in such issues was mandatory - no country has the absolute right to govern itself if it takes actions outside the bounds of human decency. Have we learned nothign from Hitler and his murderous regime
Posted by: clive | December 4, 2009 12:40 PM
I don't think Africans ,should take all the garbage in the western culture let them choose what's good for them.Western culture has betrayed christianity.I remember when the rest of the world was against death penalty in the US .Americans were saying.Go ,Uganda for your fight against immorality.
Posted by: sandra d | February 5, 2010 12:01 PM
So you agree evangelicals have no business going there to push their beliefs?
It is impossible to betray that which one has no duty towards.
As far as I know that's still the case in every industrialized democracy other than the U.S.
Imprisoning people and putting them to death for consensual sex with adults is immoral, full stop.
Posted by: DaveL | February 5, 2010 12:11 PM
Looking at the article, I see the policies that reduced incidences of HIV was a LOT more complex than just "promotion of abstinence and monogamy." And it wasn't just Christians getting behind it either.
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