Uganda Sets Aside Bill to Kill Gays

The Ugandan government has set aside a long-simmering, highly controversial bill that would have imposed the death penalty on gays in certain cases, such as repeated convictions for same-gender sexual activity. The bill would also have punished heterosexuals sympathetic to gays by requiring them to report same-sex relationships to the authorities or face serious consequences.

The bill's introduction in 2009 by anti-gay legislator David Bahati--who has been linked with anti-gay American evangelicals--created a global firestorm of criticism that threatened international aid money to the country. Though Uganda appeared to back off the bill, it seemed headed toward a vote this year.

Now, however, Ugandan lawmakers say that a new anti-gay law is not needed, since there are already proscriptions and penalties against gays on the books, Equality Matters reported on March 25. Current law provides for prison time ranging from twenty years to life for same-sex intimacy.

A posting at Box Turtle Bulletin reported the same say that Information Minister Kabakumba Masiko told the nation's television media that the bill would be set aside.

"We had the Cabinet Subcommittee which gave us a report yesterday and we did realize that there are many things that are in the bill that are covered by other laws that are already in place," said Masiko. "And the law that is in offing, the Sexual Offenses Bill, will cover most of the other issues that were going to be covered."

Box Turtle Bulletin recalled that the bill seemed dead last year when a committee made a similar determination. But Bahati kept the bill alive despite the committee's recommendations, saying that existing laws did not go far enough.

"We don't have any prohibition on promotion of homosexuality anywhere, we don't have any prohibition on same-sex marriage, we don't have any prohibition in our laws on recruitment of homosexuality of our children, we don't have any provision on counseling and caring," Bahati declared at the time. "We want to make it very clear, we want Parliament to come up with a law that is specific and clear to address the emergent problem of homosexuality."

As reported previously at EDGE, there is some evidence that Uganda's anti-gay bill was prompted in part by claims made by American evangelicals who visited the country two years ago.

In March of 2009, several American evangelicals traveled to Uganda and presented what they called the "Seminar on Exposing the Homosexuals' Agenda." Their talks contained assorted claims about gays and the "dangers" that gays pose to society. The views set out by the Americans ranged from highly dubious claims that gays can be "converted" to heterosexuality to wild, undefined assertions that a "gay agenda" was at work "to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity," as well as stereotype-based pronouncements that gay men prey on teenage boys.

But the bill's demise is not the good news it might have been for the country's beleaguered sexual minorities. Anti-gay politicians and clergy have said that homosexuality is not native to Africa, and declared that it is a Western "import."

The social cost has only been steepened by Bahati's legislation. Since the bill's introduction, homophobia in Uganda has become markedly sharper, according to a Ugandan GLBT rights activist who blogs under the name Nsubuga. "The words and actions of our religious leaders are full of hate," Nsubuga wrote in a recent essay that was published in the British newspaper The Guardian. "Mufti Mubajje, titular head of Muslims in Uganda, believes that all gay Ugandans should be marooned on an island in Lake Victoria. We would then die out and solve the country's gay problem."

Referencing Bahati's bill, Nsubuga wrote, "We found ourselves targeted by a truly horrible piece of legislation, seeking to kill and imprison us for life, all in the name of 'family and cultural values.' "

Added Nsubuga, "Death and life imprisonment. No access to information or help. The danger of being reported to 'relevant authorities' by pastors, doctors, parents. Mandatory HIV tests. All these are provisions of the Bahati bill."