By Melanie Nathan, November 26, 2012.
Campaign against United States Senators Complicit with Evangelicals in the export of hate to Uganda to kill and imprison gays and lesbians.
Americans who believe in the human right to freedom of sexuality, freedom of religion and the equal right to happiness must hold The Family and participating United States Senators and Evangelical preachers responsible and accountable for Uganda’s Kill The Gays Bill:
Americans exported hatred in the name of Christianity and anyone who is silent must be held accountable:
Watch Bishop Christopher Senyonjo speak about the Bill and the export of hate from America and then sign the below Petition.
Copyright GAY U.S.A. the Movie.2011 All rights Reserved,©
Filmed by Kristina Lapinski and interview by Melanie Nathan.
GetEQUAL Launches Campaign against United States Senators FOR Uganda’s Kill the Gays Bill
“Kill the Bill — Not LGBT Ugandans!”
Once again, the Ugandan Parliament is considering legislation known as the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” — better known as the “Kill the Gays Bill.” This time, Ugandan legislators are wanting to deliver this bill as a “Christmas gift” to the Ugandan people, attempting its passage by the end of the legislative session on December 15.
This legislation has been considered several times before, and has always been held off by brave Ugandan LGBT activists and others around the world working in solidarity with them — including GetEQUAL. Now, though, Ugandan Members of Parliament are trudging the bill back up in an attempt to draw attention away from their own rampant corruption and a controversial oil bill — using LGBT Ugandans as a political distraction from their own ethical shortcomings.
This bill is murderous in its nature and includes horrifying consequences for LGBT Ugandans and those who know/support LGBT Ugandans. The bill calls for execution of anyone engaging in same-sex behavior, imprisonment for anyone known to be helping LGBT Ugandans (including landlords renting out an apartment), and even possible jail time for those who fail to report someone else who has engaged in same-sex behavior — including medical personnel, counselors, and family members.
American evangelical religious figures and American politicians have both actively and passively encouraged this bill to pass — American religious figures like Scott Lively, Lou Engle, and Rick Warren have lent support through conferences and workshops in Uganda, while American politicians with ties to the secretive group known as “The Family” have lent support by holding off the possibility of crippling sanctions against the country.
So we’re asking five prominent members of “The Family” — Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), and Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) — to publicly denounce this bill and to ask Ugandan Members of Parliament who are members of “The Family” to kill the bill.
Subject: Kill the bill!
Uganda
is on the verge of passing a bill that will allow for the murder of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Ugandans. The worldwide network
known as “The Family” has deep connections not only to you, but to this
bill — and it’s a horrifying example of legislating morality that has
gone too far and taken a sinister turn.We are asking you to publicly denounce this bill and to call on your
friends in the Ugandan Parliament to drop the bill in order to ensure
that this murderous campaign does not continue.
PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION CLICK HERE http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6535/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=12199
The facts about one such exporter of hate:
Scott LIVELY is a writer, attorney, evangelical minister and extremist anti-gay activist who resides in Springfield, Massachusetts and is a citizen of the United States. He is a founder and President of Abiding Truth Ministries (“ATM”), which operates DefendtheFamily.com and the Pro-Family Resource Center – entities that publish and disseminate LIVELY’S writings and speeches on the internet. LIVELY also lists himself as President of Defend the Family International, which is in turn referred to as a subsidiary of ATM.
LIVELY proclaims himself one of the world’s leading experts on “the gay movement,” which he describes as an “evil,” “highly organized army of social engineers with a single purpose” and “the most dangerous social and political movement of our time.” He has written a number of books in support of his goal to deny the humanity of gays and lesbians and to strip them of their fundamental rights. While describing himself as an “international human rights consultant,” his efforts are geared to advising and working with political leaders in different countries to deprive LGBTI communities of fundamental human rights and the title appears to be more of a euphemism for what is more aptly described as a “persecution consultant.”
In The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, he and his co- author argue that the rise of Nazism – with its resultant horrors – was engineered and driven by a violent and fascistic gay movement in Germany.
Scott Lively made many a journey to Uganda where he gave workshops and lectured about his book. He has now been accused of conspiring with Ugandan politicians to, inter alia, restrict the freedom of gays.
His insidious rhetoric and attempts at overt discrimination against, and ultimately eradication of, a minority community might not take hold in many places not also struggling in the way Uganda has been in the battle against the spread of HIV/AIDS, poverty and armed conflict. Yet, it is specifically because he knew Uganda presented fertile ground and – through his willing accomplices with access to political power – a realistic opportunity to meaningfully provoke and bring about the persecution of the LGBTI community, that he focused much of his decade-long efforts there.
Recently Senator James Inhofe applauded Lively for his efforts in Uganda.
Lively is being sued under the Alien Torts Act by SMUG a group of Ugandan Gays and lesbians;
According to LIVELY’S own admissions, his influence and work in Uganda date back at least a decade when he visited Uganda twice in 2002 to coordinate with his Ugandan counterparts, Stephen LANGA, a prominent and extremist anti-gay community leader and pastor, and Martin SSEMPA, also an anti-gay extremist activist and minister, to implement his strategies to dehumanize, demonize, silence, and further criminalize the LGBTI community. While their efforts were largely effective between 2002 and 2009, LIVELY’s work took on a whole new level of urgency after a December 2008 court victory for LGBTI advocates which affirmed that they are entitled to the basic protections of law.
Spurred to action to counter the prospect of basic legal protections for LGBTI individuals, LIVELY and his co-conspirators, LANGA, SSEMPA, Minister of Ethics and Integrity James BUTURO and Member of Parliament David BAHATI, coordinated a dramatic, far-reaching response, which LIVELY and LANGA would later boast had the “effect of a nuclear bomb.” LIVELY’S 2009 work in Uganda and his call to arms to fight against an “evil” and “genocidal,” “pedophilic” “gay movement,” which he likened to the Nazis and Rwandan murderers, ignited a cultural panic and atmosphere of terror that radically intensified the climate of hatred in which LIVELY’s goals of persecution could advance. Shortly after LIVELY’S pivotal 2009 work in Uganda, one Member of Parliament expressed, “We must exterminate homosexuals before they exterminate society.”2
Among the shocking, repressive measures undertaken after 2009, is the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (also referred to as the “Kill the Gays Bill”), which proposed the death penalty for a second conviction of consensual sex between adults of the same gender, and imprisonment for failure to report on others suspected of being “homosexual,” and for advocacy in any way on issues related to homosexuality. While LIVELY has half-heartedly tried to distance himself from the death penalty.provision of the bill, he still considers it the “lesser of two evils” as compared to recognizing the humanity of LGBTI individuals or permitting their speech or advocacy.
In 2010, a tabloid newspaper – parroting characterizations of gays and lesbians repeatedly made to Ugandan officials by LIVELY – published an article “outing” SEXUAL MINORITIES UGANDA Advocacy Officer David Kato (and others), under the headline, “HANG THEM.”4 Some of the advocates featured in that article received heightened death threats, and one of them, Mr. Kato, is now dead. In February and June of 2012, trainings on human rights for LGBTI organizations were raided by Ugandan government officials who declared the gatherings “illegal.” In February 2012, the Minister of Ethics and Integrity called those gathered there “terrorists.” One of the organizers had to flee in order to avoid arrest and detention.
SEXUAL MINORITIES UGANDA has instituted a legal action in U.S. federal Court under the Alien Tort Act, declaring that LIVELY’s actions are illegal, in violation of international law and Plaintiff’s fundamental human rights. SEXUAL MINORITIES UGANDA also seeks compensatory and punitive damages for violations of their fundamental rights, and injunctive relief enjoining Lively from undertaking further actions to strip away and/or deprive Plaintiff and LGBTI community in Uganda of their fundamental rights, including their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and arbitrary arrest and detention, as part of his effort to enshrine and legalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Source the Complaint: Case 3:12-cv-30051-MAP Document 27 Filed 07/13/12
A reblogué ceci sur Michaël Cousin and commented:
In 2009, Uganda tried to vote an anti-gays bill, but an international mobilization and threats from cutting aids finances made the government going back. Those last days, the government is retrying to pass this bill.
Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, but the bill which is before the parliament proposes tougher sentences for people convicted. The current Speaker of the parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, said that “Ugandans want that law as a Christmas gift. They have asked for it and we’ll give them that gift”.
I hope a new international mobilization will make the Uganda’s government change its position.
Thank you Michael
You’re welcome !
Reblogged this on We are 1 Voice and commented:
I follow Melanie’s blog because she is in the middle of the situation. That situation is the mess that is Human Rights for LGBT people in Africa. Please follow her blog or at the very least read this “reblog”. Thanks.