Wake Up Ugandan Parliament this is an American Bill not a Ugandan Bill –
By Melanie Nathan, September 12, 2014.
As sources in Uganda reveal that increasing pressure is being brought to bear on the speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, to bring the second Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHA) to Parliament for passage, as a matter of urgency and necessity, one wonders if Parliamentarians realize that in fact the Bill is a Western import and not organic to Uganda.
One wonders what the stance would be if all Ugandan members of parliament were made aware of the history of the AHA Bill and how that might impact their views and desire to pursue it, lest we forget that many tout homosexuality itself as the Western import, rather than the Bill to eradicate it being the Western import. Trickery of the first order. And so many have fallen for it.
The first AHA was rendered null and void by a Ugandan Court due to a technicality – that the Ugandan Parliament had failed to pass it with the requisite quorum of MP’s present. Now the speaker, Hon Rebecca Kadaga, who fluffed the first round, is being urged to reintroduce the Bill as a matter of urgency and the same rhetoric is being applied louder and harder!
More than two thirds of the Parliamentarians have signed a Petition for its reintroduction. The Churches are clamoring for passage and all the while Bills such as the Marriage Bill, which truly seeks to protect family, women and children, has seemingly died, with its pressing issues of less concern to Parliamentarians. It makes one wonder about the motivation but that is the subject of another article.
The West Dines in Uganda! Schmierer, Lively, Brundridge
Here is what many of Parliamentarians do not seem to know about the AHA –
The anti-Homosexuality is an American Bill and not a Ugandan Bill:
The AHA was not birthed organically in Uganda by Ugandan people, the way Hon MP David Bahati and his cohorts would like you think it was. There is much proof that the Bill was introduced by David Bahati after direct influence and intervention by the American right wing extremist Christian Evangelicals, to include Scott Lively. In fact there is enough proof to warrant a lawsuit against Lively by a coalition of Ugandan Human Rights defenders, SMUG, brought by The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), under the American law known as the The Alien Tort Act. (ATS)
In Uganda, as with everywhere around the world, there have always been people with different sexual orientations and gender identities. The criminalization of “homosexuality” is the Western import as during the process of colonization, colonial powers brought with them laws which criminalized and attitudes which shamed LGBTI people and communities. This is true in Uganda, which was colonized by Great Britain. What we now note is how the United States religious extremists furthered this exportation, through religion, equally akin to Colonialism on many levels. Many Christians in America will note that this is not a true brand of Christianity and have distanced themselves from it – yet Ugandan Christians have chosen to believe that this IS the only Christianity, failing to tap into those which teach and preach tolerance or acceptance, love and affirmation.
A lawsuit by (CCR), in essence, served up some hard proof of this notion, when it filed a complaint in U.S. Federal court on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda against U.S. minister Scott Lively, accusing him of involvement in a campaign to persecute gay people in Uganda.
Lively has been involved in trying to implement Anti-Homosexuality legislation in Uganda since 2002, and was one of several US evangelicals who visited Uganda in 2009 shortly before a bill was drafted to include homosexual acts punishable by death.
Lively and other Evangelicals who subscribe to a fundamentalist view of the Christian Bible long lost their battle to eradicate homosexuals through criminalization and harsh punishment in the United States and so set about finding places in the world where they could root their plan. Uganda was ripe for such when MP David Bahati set about partnering with Lively.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill sets out differing degrees of homosexuality and imposes punitive measures, including life imprisonment for certain cases of consensual sex between consenting adults. The bill also includes lengthy prison sentences for so-called “promotion” about LGBTI rights and issues, bans any organizations that advocate on behalf of LGBTI rights, and may even require families, associates and even medical professionals to report people suspected of being gay (this was excluded from AHA 1 but not sure if it would be included in the new bill).
Lively has often admitted that he went to Uganda to help cohorts there prepare the groundwork for the bill and consulted on its contents.
The rhetoric used to support the Bill is of course based on serious untruths and they are ALL American lies, fed to a Ugandan populace through Church and Parliament.
The Churches influence on parliament cannot be understated and local Ugandan Church leaders were quick to share the stage and run with the Lively mantra. If one listens to this and compares it to the dicta of Jerry Falwell, The Christian Coalition, The Moral Majority circa USA 60’s -80’s it is all one voice, proving that the Ugandan talking points as conveyed through Lively is USA last Century! COLONIALISM at its best.
Yet the self-serving Ugandans seeking to promote the Bill, a Western import it, they tout homosexuality itself as the Western import – instead of acknowledging that homosexuality had been around forever, ignored culturally, without question, until the Westerners came along calling it evil and seeking to eradicate gays through this Western influenced legislation. Nowhere will find laws prohibiting male sex with males in cultural or customary laws of the Ugandan tribes, whether in written or oral tradition. Yet the Ugandan MPs are so willing to import the West’s anti-Homosexuality influence through laws, touting the defense against the laws, albeit an import, as un-African.
Proof the Anti-Homosexuality Bill Comes from the West:-
1) First, ask yourself this question – did anyone speak or care about homosexuality in Uganda prior to 2002? And then read this –
Center for Constitutional Rights, SMUG, Uganda, Scott Lively, LGBT fights criminlaization Anti Homosexuality legislation
THE AMERICAN BILL IN UGANDA THIS TIMELINE AS SET OUT BY CCR:
March 1, 2002
Lively visits Uganda
He is keynote speaker at the first national anti-gay conference. The conference is organized by Stephen Langa, and Martin Ssempa, both of whom later play a key role in intensifying the persecution against LGBTI people in Uganda.
June 1, 2002
Lively in the Media
Lively returns to Uganda a second time to expand upon his message with talks and media appearances organized by Langa. Lively is featured in major newspapers and interviewed on leading television and radio shows. Lively and Langa meet with the mayor, the city council of Kampala, and an invitation-only pastors conference. He also talks at universities and high schools. He encourages Uganda officials to use their “power of censorship” to stop the spread of homosexuality.
March 1, 2002
Lively visits Uganda
He is keynote speaker at the first national anti-gay conference. The conference is organized by Stephen Langa, and Martin Ssempa, both of whom later play a key role in intensifying the persecution against LGBTI people in Uganda.
June 1, 2002
Lively in the Media
Lively returns to Uganda a second time to expand upon his message with talks and media appearances organized by Langa. Lively is featured in major newspapers and interviewed on leading television and radio shows. Lively and Langa meet with the mayor, the city council of Kampala, and an invitation-only pastors conference. He also talks at universities and high schools. He encourages Uganda officials to use their “power of censorship” to stop the spread of homosexuality.
January 1, 2004 — December 30, 2004
The Message Catches On
Lively’s co-conspirators begin using Lively’s talking points, emphasizing the “nefarious” “homosexual agenda.” For[LR1] example: Stephen Langa launches the Uganda National Parents Network because “children are indiscriminately exposed to pornography” which is a “silent deadly virus” and the “damaging effects are already evidence in many schools… homosexuality and lesbianism are spreading like wild fire in schools.” James Nsaba Buturo, as Minister of Information, warns UNAIDS and the Uganda Aids Commission against including members of the LGBTI community in HIV/AIDS initiatives, orders police to take action against a gay organization that has allegedly formed at a University and proposes a joint government/media effort to combat pornography and homosexuality.
December 1, 2004
Suppression in the Media
Buturo blocks a showing of a documentary about LGBTI rights that was sponsored by the UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, the Uganda Human Rights Commission, and the Human Rights Centre of Uganda.
July 6, 2005
A Public Call for Persecution
An article appears in a state-owned newspaper, the New Vision, urging, “[t]he police should visit the homes mentioned in the press, spy on the perverts, arrest and prosecute them. Relevant government departments must outlaw or restrict websites, magazines, newspapers and television channels promoting immorality — including homosexuality, lesbianism, pornography, etc.”
July 20, 2005
Police Persecution
The home of a LGBTI activist and SMUG founder Victor Mukasa, who now has asylum in the USA, is raided by Ugandan authorities, who seize documents and materials and detain a guest who is brought to police station, where she is forced to urinate on herself and undress in front of male authorities to “prove her sex.” She was then assaulted and fondled. No charges were ever brought.
February 1, 2006 — December 31, 2006
Building Support in Eastern Europe
Lively co-founded Watchmen on the Walls with Latvian evangelical and anti-gay radical Alexey Ledyaev, which they describe as a global coalition coordinating “opposition to the international homosexual movement.”
August 20, 2007
Ugandan Persecution Escalates
Uganda Deputy Attorney General calls for the activists’ arrest, and Minister of Ethics and Integrity Buturo states the government was “considering changing the laws so that promotion itself becomes a crime” and to have catalogues of people involved in homosexuality.
August 21, 2007
Another Anti-Gay Rally
Ssempa organizes anti-gay rally as a “call for action on behalf of victims of homosexuality.” At the rally, Ssempa declares that “homosexuals should absolutely not be included in Uganda’s HIV/AIDS framework.” Buturo attends the rally and addresses the crowd.
August 30, 2007
Voices Silenced
Uganda Broadcasting Council suspends radio station manager for interviewing an LGBTI activist on the air
June 4, 2008
Protesters Arrested
Three LGBTI rights activists are arrested in Kampala for peacefully protesting the Uganda AIDS Commission policy excluding LGBTI persons from the commission’s programs.
December 1, 2008
The Ugandan Courts Fight Back
The High Court of Uganda issues a high-profile ruling in which it found that the 2005 home raid of Victor Mukasa and arrest of Yvonne Oyo were unlawful and violation of the rights to protection from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and violation of the right to privacy of person, home and property guaranteed by the Ugandan Constitution. This ruling would set in motion a new wave and intensification of the persecution by Lively and his Ugandan partner Stephen Langa.
June 4, 2008
Protesters Arrested
Three LGBTI rights activists are arrested in Kampala for peacefully protesting the Uganda AIDS Commission policy excluding LGBTI persons from the commission’s programs.
December 1, 2008
The Ugandan Courts Fight Back
The High Court of Uganda issues a high-profile ruling in which it found that the 2005 home raid of Victor Mukasa and arrest of Yvonne Oyo were unlawful and violation of the rights to protection from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and violation of the right to privacy of person, home and property guaranteed by the Ugandan Constitution. This ruling would set in motion a new wave and intensification of the persecution by Lively and his Ugandan partner Stephen Langa.
March 15, 2009
Ugandan Partners Carry On the Message
Following the conference, Langa, Ssempa, Buturo, and Bahati begin discussing the need for tougher anti-LGBTI legislation to combat the LGBTI community’s “threat to children.” Langa holds post-conference follow-up meeting where he draws largely from Lively’s writing and speeches. Langa and other participants identify strategies to strengthen anti-LGBTI laws.
March 5, 2009 — March 7, 2009
Lively Steps up the Persecution
Lively rushes to Uganda to assist his Ministry Partner counter the ruling in the High Court which recognized that LGBTI persons were entitled to the basic protections in the Ugandan Constitution. Lively headlines an anti-gay conference in Kampala and attended by high-profile religious and government leaders, law enforcement, and teachers, and parents. Lively talks about his 20 years of anti-gay work, and repeatedly conflates LGBTI orientation with violence, particularly with sexual violence against children. Lively also gives several seminars and holds private meetings with influential lawyers, religious leaders, and members of Parliament.
March 15, 2009
Ugandan Partners Carry On the Message
Following the conference, Langa, Ssempa, Buturo, and Bahati begin discussing the need for tougher anti-LGBTI legislation to combat the LGBTI community’s “threat to children.” Langa holds post-conference follow-up meeting where he draws largely from Lively’s writing and speeches. Langa and other participants identify strategies to strengthen anti-LGBTI laws.
March 22, 2009
Ugandan Lawmakers Take up the Message
Langa holds a second post-conference follow-up meeting. Members of Parliament attend this meeting, and in at least one instance, cite Langa and Lively’s influence on their belief that stronger anti-LGBTI legislation is needed.
April 1, 2009
Ugandan Lawmakers Take up the Message
Need for stronger anti-LGBTI legislation discussed in Parliament
March 15, 2009
Ugandan Partners Carry On the Message
Following the conference, Langa, Ssempa, Buturo, and Bahati begin discussing the need for tougher anti-LGBTI legislation to combat the LGBTI community’s “threat to children.” Langa holds post-conference follow-up meeting where he draws largely from Lively’s writing and speeches. Langa and other participants identify strategies to strengthen anti-LGBTI laws.
March 22, 2009
Ugandan Lawmakers Take up the Message
Langa holds a second post-conference follow-up meeting. Members of Parliament attend this meeting, and in at least one instance, cite Langa and Lively’s influence on their belief that stronger anti-LGBTI legislation is needed.
April 1, 2009
Ugandan Lawmakers Take up the Message
Need for stronger anti-LGBTI legislation discussed in Parliament
April 21, 2009
A Call for Harsh Punishments
Langa and supporters deliver a petition to the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament. They claim the petition was signed by over 50,000 people demanding that the government investigate the impact of homosexuality in Uganda and pass stern laws to punish acts of homosexuality.
April 29, 2009
The “Anti-Homosexuality Bill”
First draft of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB) introduced by Bahati with the full support of Lively[LR2], Buturo, Langa, and Ssempa. The bill reflected much of the theory and content espoused by Lively in the March conference and associated meetings. Similar to how Lively began speaking about homosexuality in Uganda with the story of a boy who had been brutally raped, Bahati introduced the bill to Parliament with the story of an 11-year old boy who had been raped and expelled from school. Member of Parliament urges that “We must exterminate homosexuals before they exterminate our society.”
June 1, 2009
Lively Keeps Tabs
Lively continued corresponding with Bahati to advise him on the contents of the legislation.
October 14, 2009
Punishable by Death
Draft of “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” introduced formally- would carry the death penalty for even certain acts of consensual sex, would require family members and associates to report people they suspected of being “homosexual,” and ban organizations supporting LGBTI equality and rights.
December 23, 2009
Media Attention
Ssempa and Bahati appear on state-run television discussing the importance of the bill. They announce a nationwide rally to take place in early 2010.
February 15, 2010
Anti-Gay Rally
Ssempa and two other pastors lead a demonstration in the town of Jinja. Over 4,000 participate in support of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. (use pic of signs calling for death
March 1, 2010
Lively is Pleased with Himself and so he brags
Lively says he is proud that the effects of his 2009 efforts in Uganda were likened to a nuclear bomb and he hopes that its effects spread across the world against the gay movement.
July 6, 2010
The “Father”
Lively says he’s honored to be considered the “father” of Uganda’s “pro-family” movement but that the real father is his good friend and ministry partner Stephen Langa.
October 2, 2010
“Hang Them”
The Rolling Stone, a new tabloid newspaper, begins circulation. Its first issue is devoted to forcibly outing members of the LGBTI community and uses characterizations of the LGBTI community encouraged by Lively about the danger to children. The advocacy director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, David Kato, is featured on the cover under a banner with the words, “Hang Them.” The issue includes the names, identifying information, and photos of LGBTI rights activists. Ssempa gives an exclusive interview for the publication.
November 1, 2010
More Calls to Violence
The Rolling Stone publishes another issue devoted to outing members of the LGBTI community. This issue includes another interview with Ssempa.
December 30, 2010
Death Threats
In response to a lawsuit brought by David Kato and others, the Uganda High Court enjoins the tabloid from continuing to publish injurious information. Kato and others featured in the tabloid continue to receive death threats after the lawsuit.
January 26, 2011
An Activist is Murdered
David Kato, whose lawsuit successfully stopped The Rolling Stone’s public calls for violence, is killed in his home.
February 5, 2011
“Murdering Uganda”
Days after the death of David Kato, Lively writes a blog piece entitled “Murdering Uganda,” in which he accused “lavender Marxists” of the “rape” and “murder” of Ugandan culture.
November 1, 2010
More Calls to Violence
The Rolling Stone publishes another issue devoted to outing members of the LGBTI community. This issue includes another interview with Ssempa.
December 30, 2010
Death Threats
In response to a lawsuit brought by David Kato and others, the Uganda High Court enjoins the tabloid from continuing to publish injurious information. Kato and others featured in the tabloid continue to receive death threats after the lawsuit.
January 26, 2011
An Activist is Murdered
David Kato, whose lawsuit successfully stopped The Rolling Stone’s public calls for violence, is killed in his home.
February 5, 2011
“Murdering Uganda”
Days after the death of David Kato, Lively writes a blog piece entitled “Murdering Uganda,” in which he accused “lavender Marxists” of the “rape” and “murder” of Ugandan culture.
March 3, 2011
“…all the evil…”
Lively boasts in a blog piece about being instrumental to defeating anti-discrimination legislation in Moldova, where he warned that if the bill passed, “all the evil that struck the European Union, the collapse, will come to the Republic of Moldova.”
May 6, 2011
AHB Pushes Forward
Langa testifies before a Parliamentary committee, pushing for immediate passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
September 15, 2011
A Bold Claim
Buturo states that “the days of homosexuals are over.”
October 25, 2011
AHB in Debate
Parliament votes to re-open debate on the bill.
February 7, 2012
AHB Pushes Forward
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is reintroduced by Bahati.
February 14, 2012
Police Persecution
A private conference on LGBT advocacy is raided by Minister of Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo, accompanied by police. He declares the meeting illegal, seizes conference materials, orders everyone to disband and attempts to arrest conference organizer (who escaped). Lokodo refers to the participants as “terrorists” and stated: “In the past they were stoned to death. In my own culture they are fired on by the firing squad because that is total perversion.”
June 18, 2012
More Police Persecution
Ugandan police raid a skills-building workshop for LGBTI rights advocates from East Africa. Advocates, workshop organizers, and some hotel staff and guests were held in police custody for several hours while police attempted to identify them. Minister of Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo again acknowledges he was behind the raid of the workshop and states he ordered their arrest so that “everybody else will know that at least in Uganda we have no room here for homosexuals and lesbians.”
November 24, 2012
One Man’s “Blessing” is Another Man’s Persecution
Lively refers to the potential passage of the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” as a “huge blessing.”
December 20, 2013
AHB Passes in Parliament
After more than four years of debate, the Ugandan Parliament passes the Bill and its harsh punishments, including life imprisonment.
February 24, 2014
AHA Becomes Law
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signs the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law, criminalizing the existence and work of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and other advocacy organizations. Rally led by Ssempa to give thanks and award President Museveni for signing the bill attended by 30,000 put together by Churches and other groups. Red pepper Tabloid outs “Ugandas Top 200 Homos.” SMUG reports 163 cases of people persecuted since the signing of the Act.
August 2014
AHA ruled invalid by the Court and Parliamentarians sign a petition to introduce a new AHA – after appointment of a commission of 9 to ensure the Bill does not fall prey to the human rights issues raised by Plaintiffs in the lawsuit against AHA 1 that were not adjudicated upon by the Court and to ensure a harsher bill.
In the Case Against Lively, one must note:-
The Ugandan Parliamentarians cannot fail to realize that a United States Court Judge has agreed to allow this case against Lively to proceed. The Ugandans who support this Bill ought to be very embarrassed to tout it a Ugandan Bill, if the Court indeed finds this case to be of merit- which it has on some level already done by denying Lively’s motion for dismissal.
Here is the affirmation –
Judge Ponsor of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts at Springfield, where Lively currently resides, wrote (PDF: 208KB/79 pages):
…aiding and abetting a crime against humanity is a well-established offense under customary international law, and actions for redress of this crime have frequently been recognized by American courts as part of the subclass of lawsuits for which the ATS furnishes jurisdiction. Given this, the allegations set forth in the Amended Complaint are more than adequate at this stage to require denial of Defendant’s motion to dismiss. (page 4) …
Widespread, systematic persecution of LGBTI people constitutes a crime against humanity that unquestionably violates international norms. A review of applicable authorities makes the answer to the second question easily discernible as well. Aiding and abetting in the commission of a crime against humanity is one of the limited group of international law violations for which the ATS furnishes jurisdiction. (page 20) …
….However, at this stage, the Amended Complaint sets out plausible claims to hold Defendant liable for his role in systematic persecution, rather than merely for opinions that Plaintiff finds abhorrent. The complexion of the case at this stage entitles Plaintiff to discovery and requires the court to deny Defendant’s motion to dismiss. (page 64-65)
If Ugandan Parliamentarians and the Churches that influence them are truly FOR THE PEOPLE, they will consider spending their time on the Marriage Bill instead of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
When all is said and done, Ugandans should know that the type of legislation they seek is in effect doing the bidding of the sect of American ‘religiolonialsts‘ who lost their ground war in the USA. The AHA is not a Ugandan initiative, but an American initiative and that is one reason why in essence one purveyor is currently on trial in the USA. However if the Ugandans seek to usurp the Parliament’s time with the ill doing of the West, instead of doing the work the people really need done, so be it, because there is no doubt that the Ugandan Courts will eventually add to the embarrassment by again finding the law to be invalid. What a sad waste of time spent on something that impacts so few, while the real work for Ugandan people, to protect women and children, seems to have faded into some misty realm.
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Reblogged this on JerBear's Queer World News, Views & More From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM and commented:
A reminder that the anti-LGBTQ act is really an import from our hate preachers…