Uganda revisiting “kill the gays” bill

The Ugandan Anti-Gay bill – widely known as the “kill the gays” bill – has been put back on the table this year and could be passed before the end of 2012.

Despite the fact that it could still fail, Ugandan Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told The Associated Press that the bill, which when lobbied back in 2010 originally mandated death for some gay acts, will become law this year.

Kadaga was reported in the Huffington Post saying that Ugandans are “demanding it”, and that passing this bill will be a “Christmas present” for the Ugandan Christian community.

The legislative bill will entail a two tier criminal charge system. The first charge is “aggravated homosexuality” in which an “offender” will receive the death penalty. The second charge is “the offence of homosexuality” in which an offender will receive life imprisonment.

James Nsaba Buturo, the former Ethics Minister and a Coalition Leader in Uganda, said the measure’s widespread popularity will speed its approval.

“I can tell you it has a 99 per cent chance. It will pass. No question about it,” said Buturo. “If there was any leader in this country who sympathizes with homosexuality, he will not say it in public because he knows that Ugandans, by and large, do not support that way of life.”

In an interview on The Rachel Maddow Show, David Bahati, a ‘kill the gays’ bill Sponsor in an attempt to advocate this heinous bill said, in justification, that people come from abroad to try to turn Ugandans into homosexuals.

“We have a huge problem in our country. It is the problem of people coming from abroad and investing money to court children into behaviour that we believe is bad, so we need to appreciate the fact that [homosexuality] is not a human right across the World; and especially in Uganda, we do not take it as a human right.”

Bahati said that 95 per cent of the Ugandan population does not support homosexuality.

“We believe that man was created to marry a woman, and that’s the purpose of which God created us. That is the purpose for procreation, and it is that higher purpose that we believe in. We believe that our children should not be recruited.”

Bahati said that he loves the gay population of Uganda, yet he wishes to eradicate them from society as he sees them as a moral threat.

“I know that there has been a lot of negative propaganda about this bill [using the notion of ‘serial offender’]. I do not hate gays, I love them, but I simply must protect our children who are being recruited into [homosexual] practice,” said Bahati. He added that these “homosexual recruiters” are not merely allegations and that it is a fact that recruitment is taking place in Uganda, especially in single-sex schools even though there is virtually no evidence that can be provided to sustain such an appeal.

Bahati said that once the bill is passed, there will be some form of special task force implemented in order to track down homosexuals.

“I know that homosexuality is a human right in America, but we do not believe that it is a human right in Uganda. Now, if we take [homosexuality] as a crime, then anybody who is engaged in this will be subject to the full extent of the law,” said Bahati.

“Once the law passes, we would expect that enforcement agencies will do their part in upholding the clauses of the law. It is a Ugandan bill meant for Ugandans to protect the children of Uganda.”

Maddow posed the question: “If Ugandans who are gay go anywhere else in the World and they commit something that is an offence under your bill, so they engage in sexual relations in another country, your bill provides that they should be extradited from that other country back to Uganda to face prosecution?”

Bahati answered: “We are proposing this for Ugandans within the constitution and framework of our country. It has nothing to do with Americans; it has nothing to do with the other people of the World because Uganda is a sovereign state. But, I think the bottom line is that we should protect the children, to uphold a tradition of family in Uganda.”

When questioned about how the existence of gay people hurts the traditional family in Uganda, Bahati concluded, “it hurts my family when my child goes to school and is converted into a gay, which is not accepted in our society.”

Last August, hacktivists involved in the international collective known as Anonymous hacked and defaced several Ugandan government Websites in support of the Ugandan LGBT community and wrote to Ugandan officials in opposition to the proposed legislative bill.

“You have been warned, repeatedly, to expect us. Your violations of the rights of LGBT people have disgusted us,” wrote Anonymous. “All people have the right to live in dignity free from the repression of someone else’s political and religious beliefs. You should be proud of your LGBT citizens, because they clearly have more balls than you will ever have. Real Ugandan Pride is demonstrated in standing up to oppression despite fearing the abuse, torture and murder inflicted on LGBT at the hands of the corrupt government.”