Uganda somehow gets worse on LGBT rights

[dead0man]

BBC

People who identify as gay in Uganda risk life in prison after parliament passed a new bill to crack down on homosexual activities.

It also includes the death penalty in certain cases.

A rights activist told the BBC the debate around the bill had led to fear of more attacks on gay people.

"There is a lot of blackmail. People are receiving calls that 'if you don't give me money, I will report that you are gay,'" they said.

The bill is one of the toughest pieces of anti-gay legislation in Africa.

Homosexual acts are already illegal in Uganda but this bill introduces many new criminal offences.

As well as making merely identifying as gay illegal for the first time, friends, family and members of the community would have a duty to report individuals in same-sex relationships to the authorities.

It was passed with widespread support in Uganda's parliament on Tuesday evening.

boooo

[CumbrianLefty]

Is it now the most homophobic country in the world?

(certainly outside some Islamic states, anyway)

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Is it now the most homophobic country in the world?

(certainly outside some Islamic states, anyway)

It might be in the running even including said countries if it's true that it bans merely identifying as gay. Awful, awful stuff.

[SnowLabrador]

This is a blueprint for the next GOP administration here in the US. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

[Ferguson97]

Pure evil.

[DavidB.]

This is a blueprint for the next GOP administration here in the US. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Americans not relating each and every development in the world to America challenge (literally impossible)

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

This is a blueprint for the next GOP administration here in the US. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Americans not relating each and every development in the world to America challenge (literally impossible)

Tbf US Republicans and evangelical Christians had a huge in the early days of Uganda's anti LGBT legilsation

[afleitch]

This is a blueprint for the next GOP administration here in the US. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Americans not relating each and every development in the world to America challenge (literally impossible)

Tbf US Republicans and evangelical Christians had a huge in the early days of Uganda's anti LGBT legilsation

They still have influence.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

This is a blueprint for the next GOP administration here in the US. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Americans not relating each and every development in the world to America challenge (literally impossible)

Tbf US Republicans and evangelical Christians had a huge in the early days of Uganda's anti LGBT legilsation

They still have influence.

Yep. My favorite evidence of this was when a TV crew went to some village after the last anti-gay law and one of the women said "it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve"

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's a complicated area. It's important not to play down the impact of outside propaganda, but it's also important not to downplay domestic factors either. It's the interplay between the two that is especially dangerous, as is often the way. Some of the strangest sets of Mimic Men yet created, it must be said.

[Meclazine for Israel]

South Africa is not the best with the gay and lesbian community either.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Missionaries and colonial law have had their effects here, but people/state actors/powerbrokers in Uganda have agency in shaping their own culture. If this weren't the case, you'd expect former African colonies' cultures to be much more homogenous than they actually are.

Assigning all responsibility to the West misdiagnoses the problem and therefore risks delaying potential solutions.

[CumbrianLefty]

Should be too obvious to need saying, but its not.

[Make America Grumpy Again]

This is a blueprint for the next GOP administration here in the US. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Americans not relating each and every development in the world to America challenge (literally impossible)

Tbf US Republicans and evangelical Christians had a huge in the early days of Uganda's anti LGBT legilsation

They still have influence.

Yep. My favorite evidence of this was when a TV crew went to some village after the last anti-gay law and one of the women said "it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve"

I’m near certain that the Adam & Steve expression was an American invention.

[NOVA Green]

Long read, but tossing this in the proverbial pipe to puff on which actually does a really decent job of covering Colonial activity in Uganda and competitions among missionary movements...

Likely a 30 minute speed reading exercise assuming comprehension of the content and a really fascinating read including the history of the "White Fathers", which honestly I have not yet fully read.

Seems like a lot of this originated from competing European Missionaries both Catholic and Protestant in various parts of the artificial country called Uganda.

Still also looks like there were some political struggles involved under the colonized nation which might have created a longer and more permanent form of repression against Homosexual Men than in many other countries within Sub-Saharan Afrika.

Apologies if I overquoted, but reality is this is less than 5% of the total word count and the "WHY" of Uganda is an extremely complicated subject not simply defined in small sound bites.

The Catholics did not fall under the same suspicion, if only because the French government had little interest in East Africa at this time. Nevertheless what favor the Catholics did enjoy was precarious. Mapera incurred the active hostility of the Muslims at court by his flamboyant and extravagant denunciations of Islam. In 1882 the White Fathers withdrew from Buganda altogether. This was a surprising decision; and even now the precise reasons for their withdrawal are not altogether clear. But it seems that they were particularly concerned about the corruption of their orphans and freed slaves by homosexual practices infiltrating into their orphanage from the nearby lubiri. These orphans were, by and large, not Baganda. The practice of redeeming slaves to provide a nucleus of Christianity was still a major element of their mission strategy in Buganda and this may be a sufficient explanation of their withdrawal to the moral haven of Bukumbi, south of the lake. The withdrawal did not mean an end to Catholic activity in Buganda–the pages continued to meet and an increasing number of neophytes were taught. Responsibility for the propagation of the faith increased among Baganda Catholic converts.

Mwanga succeeded his father in October 1884. He was 18 years old. Mwanga seems to have lacked strong religious convictions–he was a skeptic in an age of faith. His homosexuality alienated him from the missionaries. Like all Kabakas at the beginning of their reign, Mwanga needed to assert his authority over all elements and factions within the country, including the foreign missionaries (the White Fathers had not yet returned and so at first this meant the Protestants). This general need to assert his authority and the personal antagonisms with the three missionaries in the country (especially with Ashe) led to the death of the first three Baganda Christians on January 31, 1885. The young protestant martyrs, Makko Kakumba, Nuwa Serwanga and Yusuf Lugalama, were all members of the mission household. The missionaries were being warned against becoming a focus of political power or political discontent against the young Kabaka.

In May and June 1886 a large massacre of Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, took place. Many were executed at Namugongo, the traditional execution site also used for the Muslim martyrs of 1876. The immediate cause for the killings was the Kabaka’s anger at the disobedience of his Christian pages, in particular their refusal to indulge in homosexual practices. Charles Lwanga, the Catholic head of the pages in the king’s private apartments, had been particularly vigilant in protecting the Christian boys under his charge from the advances of the Kabaka and some of the chiefs.

https://dacb.org/histories/uganda-history-christianity/

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

This is a blueprint for the next GOP administration here in the US. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Americans not relating each and every development in the world to America challenge (literally impossible)

Tbf US Republicans and evangelical Christians had a huge in the early days of Uganda's anti LGBT legilsation

They still have influence.

Yep. My favorite evidence of this was when a TV crew went to some village after the last anti-gay law and one of the women said "it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve"

I’m near certain that the Adam & Steve expression was an American invention.

That's the thing. People in what used to be called "darkest Africa" using it is pretty strong evidence of ideological colonization, even though, as Al and and TiltsAreUnderrated have pointed out, this shouldn't be overemphasized at the expense of Ugandans' own agency and responsibility for their beliefs and actions.

South Africa is not the best with the gay and lesbian community either.

South Africa at least has some legal and constitutional protections, even if the culture and civil society aren't much better on this than they are in points north.

[dead0man]

Tanzania is doing it too

[CumbrianLefty]

Ah, that's depressing.

[TDAS04]

So much virulent hatred around the world.

Many cultural conservatives and religious fanatics say humanity is evil.

Well, they’re proving themselves right.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

This is the stuff that made some liberals decide to boycott Chick-fil-A like 10 years ago, since their foundation gave a quarter million dollars to a group that was consulting during Uganda's last attempt to make being gay a death penalty offense. I was told we were being hysterical at the time.

[SnowLabrador]

The US will be worse in five years. Book it.