|
|
|
Spooky News Spooky news from around the web goes in this forum. Please always credit and link your source and only use sources which are okay with being posted. No profanity in subject headings please. |
01-06-2010, 11:16 PM
|
#1
|
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,548
|
Evangelicals play role in Uganda anti-gay death penalty legislation
Quote:
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.
Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.
“It’s a fight for their lives,” said Mai Kiang, a director at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York-based group that has channeled nearly $75,000 to Ugandan gay rights activists and expects that amount to grow.
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.
“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.
“That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”
Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.
Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional ****.
“Now we really have to go undercover,” said Stosh Mugisha, a gay rights activist who said she was pinned down in a guava orchard and ***** by a farmhand who wanted to cure her of her attraction to girls. She said that she was impregnated and infected with H.I.V., but that her grandmother’s reaction was simply, “ ‘You are too stubborn.’ ”
Despite such attacks, many gay men and lesbians here said things had been getting better for them before the bill, at least enough to hold news conferences and publicly advocate for their rights. Now they worry that the bill could encourage lynchings. Already, mobs beat people to death for infractions as minor as stealing shoes.
“What these people have done is set the fire they can’t quench,” said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.
Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans “underestimated the homophobia in Uganda” and “what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.”
“When you speak like that,” he said, “Africans will fight to the death.”
Uganda is an exceptionally lush, mostly rural country where conservative Christian groups wield enormous influence. This is, after all, the land of proposed virginity scholarships, songs about Jesus playing in the airport, “Uganda is Blessed” bumper stickers on Parliament office doors and a suggestion by the president’s wife that a virginity census could be a way to fight AIDS.
During the Bush administration, American officials praised Uganda’s family-values policies and steered millions of dollars into abstinence programs.
Uganda has also become a magnet for American evangelical groups. Some of the best known Christian personalities have recently passed through here, often bringing with them anti-homosexuality messages, including the Rev. Rick Warren, who visited in 2008 and has compared homosexuality to pedophilia. (Mr. Warren recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct what he called “lies and errors and false reports” that he played a role in it.)
Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. Beyond Africa, a handful of Muslim countries, like Iran and Yemen, also have the death penalty for homosexuals. But many Ugandans said they thought that was going too far. A few even spoke out in support of gay people.
“I can defend them,” said Haj Medih, a Muslim taxi driver with many homosexual customers. “But I fear the what? The police, the government. They can arrest you and put you in the safe house, and for me, I don’t have any lawyer who can help me.”
|
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/wo...html?ref=world
Its pretty sick and pretty frightening. One of the speakers, Scott Lively apparently wrote a book called The Pink Swastika in which he claims homosexuals were behind the Holocaust, also, I really can't sit through it and watch it all, but apparently in his speech he goes further and speculates that homosexuals may have been behind the Rwanda genocide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amVnW...layer_embedded
I would think its fair to say that if this legislation goes through, they are going to have a lot of blood on their hands. I can't believe how hateful "Christians" can be.
|
|
|
01-07-2010, 06:40 AM
|
#2
|
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: R'lyeh
Posts: 2,104
|
Peace and love to all men.
As long as they don't show their love by sticking it in other men.
__________________
"One mohawk wasn't enough to keep up with how badass he is so he had to get two." - Haunted House, about me, YEAH, ME!
Terror Nuclear,Terror Nuclear
|
|
|
01-07-2010, 10:11 AM
|
#3
|
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Smexyville, Colorado
Posts: 2,424
|
Mother@#$%ing fundies!!!! Argh!!! I'm so tired of hearing about fundie xtians going out preaching the "evils" of gayness, birthcontrol and being not-xtian.... I hate fundies.. of EVERY stripe.
|
|
|
01-07-2010, 01:33 PM
|
#4
|
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Nowhere
Posts: 1,835
|
Funny how whenever they try to make things better, they make things worse.
|
|
|
01-07-2010, 01:34 PM
|
#5
|
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Smexyville, Colorado
Posts: 2,424
|
That's what happens when uptight busy-bodies try to rule the world.
|
|
|
01-07-2010, 07:50 PM
|
#6
|
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Sugar Hill
Posts: 3,887
|
Jesus Christ that's fucking nuts.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by KontanKarite
I promote radical change through my actions.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger
I have chugged more than ten epic boners.
|
|
|
|
01-08-2010, 01:47 AM
|
#7
|
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Back in Wisconsin(thinking about invading the south)
Posts: 3,693
|
So they preach that gay people, were behind a holocost, that seeked to kill all gay people. Hmm, maybe they're trying to prepare everyone for evil robots that are vulnerable to paradoxes to rise up and try to take over the world.
__________________
"The chaos of the world viewed from a distance reveals perfection."- me
"Never overestimate the intellect of someone so foolish that they would exploit and perpetuate stupidity in the people around them, for they create their own damnation as they tear out and sell the pillars that support society as a whole, bringing it crashing down upon them."-me
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”- Einstein
|
|
|
01-08-2010, 10:26 AM
|
#8
|
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Posts: 2,670
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Renatus
So they preach that gay people, were behind a holocost, that seeked to kill all gay people. Hmm, maybe they're trying to prepare everyone for evil robots that are vulnerable to paradoxes to rise up and try to take over the world.
|
Just put on your tin foil hat, and you'll be aight.
__________________
You should talk you fugly, cat bashing, psychopathic urinal on two legs...
-Jack_the_knife
I don't hate you. Saying I hate you would be like saying I hate a dog with no legs trying to cross a busy freeway.
-Mr. Filth
|
|
|
01-09-2010, 09:43 AM
|
#9
|
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 323
|
Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with these people?
Of course, it's unfair to blame only the evangelicals. Sure, they were certainly the guiding force of this crusade, but generally when crazy people are talking to me I ignore them. I'm a bit more pissed at the Ugandans for not having better judgment on these lunatics.
|
|
|
01-10-2010, 08:40 AM
|
#10
|
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Smexyville, Colorado
Posts: 2,424
|
Well yeah, there were probably people in the gov't that were similarly homophobic to a detrimental degree.
|
|
|
01-11-2010, 06:06 PM
|
#11
|
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Nowhere
Posts: 1,835
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by KissMeDeadly
Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with these people?
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by KissMeDeadly
Jesus Christ
|
You answered your own question.
|
|
|
01-11-2010, 06:42 PM
|
#12
|
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Posts: 2,670
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows
You answered your own question.
|
+1 awesomeness level for you...
__________________
You should talk you fugly, cat bashing, psychopathic urinal on two legs...
-Jack_the_knife
I don't hate you. Saying I hate you would be like saying I hate a dog with no legs trying to cross a busy freeway.
-Mr. Filth
|
|
|
01-11-2010, 07:55 PM
|
#13
|
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Back in Wisconsin(thinking about invading the south)
Posts: 3,693
|
Correction
Quote:
Originally Posted by KissMeDeadly
Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with these people?
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by KissMeDeadly
these people
|
Jesus didnt make anyone do anything. You might as well blame the founding fathers for telemarketers if a few telemarketers' interpretations of freedom of speech leads them to believe you have the right to harass somone. Even animals discriminate against animals of the same species that are different.
__________________
"The chaos of the world viewed from a distance reveals perfection."- me
"Never overestimate the intellect of someone so foolish that they would exploit and perpetuate stupidity in the people around them, for they create their own damnation as they tear out and sell the pillars that support society as a whole, bringing it crashing down upon them."-me
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”- Einstein
|
|
|
01-12-2010, 02:28 PM
|
#14
|
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 323
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Renatus
Correction
Jesus didnt make anyone do anything.
|
Quite right.
|
|
|
01-14-2010, 07:10 AM
|
#15
|
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Dirty South
Posts: 1,726
|
__________________
Kill your idol. Come on, jump into the void!
|
|
|
01-14-2010, 08:49 AM
|
#16
|
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Harlem
Posts: 6,909
|
Why am I not surprised? Why am I not outraged?
__________________
No Gods. No Kings.
Not all beliefs and ideas are equal.
|
|
|
01-14-2010, 05:37 PM
|
#17
|
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 2,932
|
No one is surprised, but how the fuck can you not be outraged?
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by KissMeDeadly
You fucking people [war veterans] are only a step below entitled rich kids, the only difference being you had to do and witness horrible things, instead of being given everything.
|
real classy
|
|
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
All times are GMT -7. The time now is 05:34 AM.
|
|