By Melanie Nathan, March 30, 2014.
Updates with pics from the parade below
Since the signing of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Pastor Martin Ssempa, in the name of Christianity, has been mustering up the forces for a huge rally to further endorse and celebrate the Christian Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality era, even usurping the notion of Pride with, “Uganda Pride”, in the context of an anti-homosexuality rally. This heralds a significant cry to attack gays.
Although there will also be a debate to include the more reasonable voice of Andrew Mwenda, the rally as well as the debate, uses clear anti-gay rhetoric and the verbiage in its advertising and both events promise to be terrifying for gays.
Soon after the Bill was signed, Ssempa held a party in Uganda cheering the new law and exalting the lawmakers and President Museveni who ensured its full enactment. At the same time, Red Pepper ran a two week long series in their tabloid, systematically outing hundreds of LGBTI people, or those perceived as such.
Ssempa knows that this caused many LGBTI people to go underground or into exile, to escape the brutal impact of the new law that provides 14 years to life in prison for same-sex relations, as well as criminalizes so called “promotion” of homosexuality, which has immobilized the NGO’s and human rights defenders, including HIV/AIDS services to LGBTI people.
Yet, this is not enough for the seemingly Satanic Ssempa. How much hate can a person display in the given context? Well Ssempa is willing to test those bounds with the Rally he organized for today, which in essence serves only to up the ante on the war against Ugandans gays and the entire LGBTI community.
The outcome of today’s rally will only worsen the current persecution already suffered by this minority in Uganda, so clearly scapegoated to avoid scrutiny by locals and the international community of Uganda’s real ills.
After all, if one were to reflect on the real ills I imagine Ssempa would then be marching against the insidiously immoral behavior of its male citizens who are happy to pay their desperate shillings to the thousand of prostitutes forced onto the streets to feed their children, rather than paying those very shillings to feed their own children. The latter just one example of the real immoral milieu – and the irony is that perhaps this would not be occurring at this epidemic level, but for the corruption of the very Parliament that passed the anti-gay laws and the 28 year dictatorship that has ensured the rampant poverty.
Now Ssempa is ensuring the persecution of LGBTI Ugandans further and he well knows the result. He is yelling for lynching and beating and exacerbating the firings by employers, the chasing out of homes by families, the evictions by landlords, the denial of HIV/AIDS services and the assaults by friends and neighbors.
The phrases on the signage read “Say No To Homosexuality”
Here is a comment from a local Ugandan LGBTI person who is currently in hiding:
Martin Ssempa’s war on lgbt’s in Uganda. he is calling all university students from Makerere to join him. It is such crusades that make us feel totally out of place and we are scared. Pastor Martin Sempa owns One Love, a church in Makerere University and is married to an American wife Tracy. He is one of the people who have gone public to show their hatred for lgbt’s.expose him please!
That’s the flier announcing Pastor martin Ssempa’s war on lgbt’s in uganda. (above)
Last I heard Ssempa had a green card or some have suggested, U.S. citizenship, married to an American, Tracy Ssempa. While LGBT people in Uganda have an almost impossible time obtaining visas to places like the United States, we accommodate Ssempa who has thumbed his nose at our emerging equality and the financial aid we provide to Uganda, while continuing his campaign of flagrant persecution. Perhaps its time to place the shoe on the other foot. I for one will be calling on the State Department to revoke Ssempa’s green card and if they do not and he sets foot here in the USA – guess who will be first to ensure his arrest under ICC rules or whatever law we find applicable.
3/30: It had been reported that Martin Ssempa had invited President Museveni to his hate march. It appears now that he will be attending as multiple human rights defenders have tweeted the march will be telecast on Ugandan government television since Museveni will be attending:
3/31: Commentary from a Ugandan human rights defender watching the proceedings –
“What is happening in Uganda at the Kololo grounds feels like a religious reign of terror!
Its very scary- What we are fighting for in Uganda now is not just a human rights struggle, but an all out war- Today i feel weak, unequipped and powerless. Today i weep for the wave of homophobia that has spread throughout my beloved country, and i cant even pray- because the homophobes own the bible-: (“
Twitter hashtag of the rally #AHACelebrations #AHAthanksgiving
—————————————————-
We are still waiting for the real Christians to come out forcefully against what is going on with harsh penalties and persecution for Gays in Africa. The exporters of this religion should be on the frontline in the battle against the harm caused bu the few extremists. READ MORE
The Pain to Gays in Africa through the Evolution of Joel Osteen
America is putting a deaf ear in what,s happening yet the Obama administration drummed highly and promoted the LGBT people to live a harmoniuos life. Why are they failing to at least give Visas to the kuchus in this horrible situation ? Death is cropping up even those hidden i am afraid will be unearthed and brutally face this harsh law ! Come on President Barack Obama entwine with the US DEPT OF STATE to save Ugandans !
I support your words to the fullest! In 1936 it was the Jews… Now it’s gays.. Who’s next?
It will be the Muslims next I suppose. Then Blacks, then Orientals, then Asians then finally Women. These hatemongers Have to have an enemy to motivate their hatred.
Dont forget part of the persecution against gays is Sharia law too
Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
SMH ….
Thank you
Welcome!! 8-)
I applaud your work. It’s interesting to see marchers holding their signage upside down — perhaps they are illiterate. That would seem right. Anyway, I am having a hard time confirming the Bishop’s hateful words at the Easter mass. Is there a video or a transcript? Why is mainstream media ignoring this? Has there been any response from the Vatican or from a Cardinal? This type of vitriole seems so contrary to the Church’s message of love. The Pope responded “Who am I to judge?” when he addressed the issue of homosexuals in the Church and he seems to be so humble and kind. How can the Church ignore this if it is really happening?
Mathew dont be surprised if it was not recorded. Also this is not the first time. One of the Bishops in Uganda fired a Uganda priest for helping gays. Accused him of being gay… too… it is no surprise.
Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat™.
THank you
My pleasure, you do extraordinary work with your blog.
Lies and more lies in this statement: “He is yelling for lynching and beating and exacerbating the firings by employers, the chasing out of homes by families, the evictions by landlords, the denial of HIV/AIDS services and the assaults by friends and neighbors.”
Reblogged this on Carolina Mountain Blue and commented:
I’m at a loss of words as to the depths to which bigotry will rear its’ ugly head around the world; how much further does it have to go before the United States is compelled to act?
Reblogged this on JerBear's Queer World News, Views & More From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM.
if the Pastor really has a green card, he needs to lose that……Anyway, here is some satire for you,maybe to harsh for your page….
http://satireandcomment.com/0214uganda.html
The church and or the synagogue would be the hypocrites if they took any other stand than against homosexuality. Genesis19:1-29Leviticus 18:22 Romans 1:18-32 Mark10:6-9 1 corinthians 6:9-10 1Timothy1:10. You can’t call upon Christians and God to condone what has been condemed. Don’t condem Uganda or Christians for not giving homosexuality a pass. You have satan’s blessings what more do you al want, he is your master.
Haha John LOL seriously. What planet are you on ?My orthodox synagogue Rabbis disagrees with you completely. My Chabad Rabbi disagrees too. About 20 friends of ine who are PAstors of a variety of Christian churches also disagree. the Bible is subject to interpretation, a living document that evolves. I could take each and everyone of those chapters you mention and show you where you are 100% wrong in your interpretation. And while you about it. Do you follow the 613 hallacah? Because if you do not under your own interpretation you are doomed. One example is eating port, touching a football made of pigskin – the time your eye roved to your wife’s best friend- and the shirt you are wearing touching the pants of a different clothe. You are screwed my friend – all those laws equate to your same interpretation of homosexuality. I have yet to hear our Bishop tell everyone who eats pigmeat that they must go to jail for life…, o even those who commit adultery – how about we “GET RID ” of them too? G-d’s word is subject to evolution and interpretation. If you cannot live by that then you had better start following all 613 l;aws of the Old testament. LOL
I’m right with you on this one Melanie. I have shared your post on FB I hope more come forward to speak up and help stop this EVIL. This bishop should be stood down. I hope the Pope decideds to act !
cheers Mike B
Well said (written), as the injunctions against wearing mixed fibers, eating pork, etc. were redactions from older societies: Babylonian and the Hittite empire. Adultery was a statement about the estrangement of property but even the Jesus of the New Testament would not condemn the adulteress in today’s Bibles. Sex has a negligible role in the Bible, save in discussions of the plurality of wives (nowhere does the bible state that marriage is between one man and one woman, as Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, while his mother was an adulteress married to Uriah the Hittite who accepted the sexual advances of the King David who had a harem; Abraham married his sister and her servant, and Jacob married two first-cousins who were sisters, etc.) Christians (a word not found in any Bible) have a unique way of twisting scripture to support their own opinion and totally ignore 2 Samuel 1:26.
You are reading an eighteenth to twentieth century redaction and bad translation. The word “homosexuality” did not exist before 1863 when it was coined to enable a more lucid translation of Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s “Psychopathia sexualis, Mit besonderer Berucksichtigung der conträren Sexualempfindung. Eine klinisch-forensische Studie” (1893) as the word used was “inversion” (meaning a turning toward the self–or egoism and hedonism. It was never used in the Torah as that was a statement about turning to other gods, and Leviticus deals with self-deception.
The Ugandans are definitely Constantinian Christians, taking their cue from the most illiterate of bishops attending the emperor’s Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, and led the charge for Constantine to burn original works that disagreed with them–thus denying the world most of ancient thought on the role of man and god–but your comment about Satan (it is a proper noun and means Advocate for God: Job 2:1, a Babylonian story) has nothing in common with the command of the Jesus of the New Testament not to judge (Matthew 7:1). Hate is definitely a Christian value but it has no place in the thinking or sayings of the New Testament Jesus. The church of Uganda is, indeed, hypocritical in claiming to “keep the word of god”, yet, in a way, it does: the gods of Rome and the ancient Pauline community.
Try reading the papyrus in the Rylands Library–and discover your bible does not match the records of the first century–for what you read were contrivances that were marginalia in the 6th-9th centuries scriptorum that were later moved into the gospels by illiterate copyists and monks as education was as poor then as it is today in Uganda.
The Uganda “Christian” community–and government–obviously never read or understood the words of Jesus who forbade the judging of others (Matthew 7:1) and who did not make a single comment about homosexuality. On the contrary, the Jesus of the New Testament gospels called on all people to love one another (John 13:34-35), and to work together for the good of all people.
What Uganda is experiencing is the twisted, out-of-context, badly translated words of Saul of Tarsus that fit within the empire of Constantine I who transmogrified scripture with a handful of bishops at his Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. The Bishop of Uganda is not a Christian but a follower of Hitler and hate. He must be removed by all means possible, the Vatican notified of this miscreant’s Easter message, and those who believe in the words of Jesus rise up and speak out. Hate is not a family value and Uganda is not a nation that follows Jesus.
Just so horrible and using the name of Christ to spew their hate. Just plain vile! I hope ALL foreign aid ceases immediately to these barbarians.
Thank GOD that somebody had a guts to point out the grave sin indeed he will be rewarded in heaven
whose G-d your or mine?
Having written and published on Uganda, this is a sad page in its history, yet I have the moral obligation to write and expose this hypocrisy that pretends it is a statement of religiosity. The hate is Pauline, but not reflective of Jesus, and not found in any bible or scripture that I am familiar with as a priest or scholar. Museveni is weak and does not represent thinking or compassion and is opposed to all human rights, and Martin Ssempa has as much biblical training as a two-year-old and is on par with the Uganda bishop who must be removed from his see.
If this is even true, which I highly doubt since the writer lies about the holocaust, then the writer should contact the pope. If this Catholic bishop is calling for genocide of anyone, he is not only opposing the teaching of the Church, he’s some kind of psychopath and needs to be removed immediately. I seriously doubt this is true, but bishops are humans and even they are not exempt from being nuts. Report it to the man who can do something about it instead of just whining about it to a bunch of us no bodies who have no power to fix it.
Hey CATHOLIC as u choose to name yourself – where the lie about the Holocaust? Please kindly tell me where the writer lied about the Holocaust?