Kill the Gays Bill

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The president of South Africa on Tuesday said he respects Uganda’s right to pass anti-gay legislation and that no action will be taken against the country.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Human rights activists on Tuesday petitioned Uganda’s Constitutional Court to challenge the validity of an anti-gay measure that allows severe penalties against homosexuality. The activists – under a group called Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law – hope the court will agree the new law violates Uganda’s constitution by […]

As a communications person myself, I can really appreciate a good PR campaign, and the best I’ve seen in a long time is the new effort by U.S. right-wing evangelicals to completely whitewash their own history of involvement with Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality law. For the last five years, human rights advocates around the world been discussing how U.S. conservative figures were integrally involved in the creation of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (originally called the “Kill the Gays Bill”).

KAMPALA, Uganda — Uganda’s government on Tuesday dismissed calls by U.S. President Barack Obama not to sign an anti-homosexuality law, saying it was determined to protect the country’s “morals” even if that meant losing international aid.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Friday he would sign the country’s controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill only on the condition that he receives scientific proof that gays are made and not born.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has blocked the controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill and has rebuked Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga for failure to follow parliamentary procedures by passing the law without a quorum, reports the Daily Monitor, the leading Ugandan newspaper.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Archbishop Stanley Ntagali, the head Uganda’s Anglican Church of Uganda, said that gay bishops are a “spiritual cancer” and do not belong in the Church.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — In a first-of-its kind case brought by a Ugandan LGBTI advocacy organization against a prominent U.S. anti-gay extremist, a federal judge on Wednesday ruled that persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is a crime against humanity and that the fundamental human rights of LGBTI people are protected under international law.

OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada — A Canadian foreign affairs official acknowledged Friday that there are ongoing efforts to fund grassroots Ugandan LGBTQ advocacy organizations who are battling efforts by the Ugandan Parliament to pass that country’s proposed anti-homosexuality bill.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Police in Uganda on Monday arrested and LGBT youth counselor under laws which prohibit unnatural carnal acts — a definition which is widely understood to include homosexuality and “recruiting youth into homosexuality.”

Business will resume as normal in Uganda in February, as it has at the start of every parliamentary session since the “Kill the Gays” bill was proposed in 2009, with the possibility of the bill still existing on the agenda. We have been fighting this same bill for three years now, and it continues to come back. To claim that we “killed” the bill isn’t really honest with ourselves and with others that we want to get involved in protecting LGBT Ugandan people.

The Ugandan Parliament adjourned for the holidays on Friday, and again avoided taking any action on the controversial “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” that Speaker Rebecca Kadaga had promised would be approved as a “Christmas gift” to the nation.

VATICAN CITY — Uganda Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, who last month promised that her country’s anti-homosexuality bill would be approved as a “Christmas gift” to the nation, received a blessing from Pope Benedict XVI during a mass attended by at the Vatican on Wednesday.

U.S. officials offered a different account about the status of a draconian anti-gay bill in Uganda on Tuesday, saying the legislation had yet to move out of committee and disputing earlier media reports and State Department comments by saying the panel is incapable of removing the infamous death penalty provision from the legislation.

The top U.S. diplomat in Africa met over the weekend with leaders in Uganda to express concerns about an anti-gay bill pending before the country’s parliament that could be headed for a vote as soon as this week, according to the State Department.

A committee in the Uganda Parliament has advanced a proposed anti-homosexuality bill, but not before dropping a controversial death penalty clause from its original version that had earned the measure the nickname the “Kill the Gays” bill.

KAMPALA — Uganda’s speaker of parliament has promised that the controversial anti-homosexuality bill, dubbed the “Kill the Gays Bill,” will pass by the end of the year, calling it a “Christmas gift” to the nation.

ENTEBBE, Uganda — The Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament has said that she would stand firm against homosexuality, and that she will push for that country’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill to be passed as soon as possible by Parliament.

On April 20, Invisible Children will hold a worldwide rally to draw attention to murderous Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) founder Joseph Kony. The event is called “Cover the Night,” but when one looks a bit closer at the shady right wing extremists this group cavorts with, a more appropriate name might be “Invisible Agenda: Covering Up The Theocratic Nightmare.”

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Scott Lively, the anti-gay U.S. evangelist who is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of a Ugandan gay rights group, responded Thursday, and said he was being targeted “for speaking the truth of the Bible” about homosexuality.