Africa and Homosexuality: Is It Natural and Native?

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
April 10, 2011

On March 5 this year the British Broadcasting Company, always looking for unusual or controversial subject matter to entertain its audience, found spice in sponsoring a debate about homosexuality in Africa. It's a topic that is guaranteed to stir up dissonance and disagreement and, true to form, the televised 'discussion' indeed did just that. With a hand-picked audience of pro-gay and anti-gay activists from across Africa the stage was carefully set to hear rational and emotional arguments about same-sex orientation and behavior.

To me it felt rather like a staged carnival show with pre-set performers revealing (and some shouting) their reasons and biases for or against an imagined 'gay agenda' in Africa.

(Photos: protests outside the BBC studios during the debate)

The official title of the debate was "Is Homosexuality Un-African?" With five panelists (listed below), three pro-gay and two anti-gay, the underlying message was pre-set, appropriately in my mind, to help enclose gay rights into a larger frame of human rights. The moderator, Zeinab Badawi , made an effort to be polite to the homophobes--including panelist David Bahati, author of Uganda's proposed death-to-gays legislation.

Despite anti-gay comments from certain audience members who repeated the usual 'unnatural--man4woman--sinful--child-recruitment--procreation' arguments against homosexuals, the slant was clear. Leading African lesbian and gay activists in the audience were given turns to speak against the anti-gay arguments--including Monica Tabengwa whose group LeGaBiBo in Botswana is suing the government for its alleged unconstitutional statutes against homosexuality.

The positive flavor of the program was not unexpected since the UK (home of the BBC) has become one of the most pro-gay countries in the modern world, along with South Africa. The UK requires its world-wide ambassadors to advocate equality and human rights. (It should, as penance, since it was the 19th and early 20th century British Empire laws that criminalized homosexuality and set the stage for today's world-wide homophobia to take root in many former colonies.)

At the end of the debate Bahati said he was leaving the debate and South Africa "with a bleeding heart" meaning he was disheartened by hearing opposing views; he is not going to be dissuaded from his arch-homophobic attitude or his legislation no matter what reasoned or personal testimony he encounters. So the social disease of homophobia continues to be spread.

Someone should have said to him "now you know how gay hearts bleed in Uganda under your governance."

The debate was broadcast on the BBC system on March 12 and 13 and the video was released to the media. The video is available free and the link is posted here. It lasts 47 minutes.

See the debate here.

Debate panelists were:
Paula Akugizibwe - Human Rights Activist, Rwanda
David Bahati - Member of Parliament, Uganda
Eusebius McKaiser - Writer & Lecturer, South Africa
Festus Mogae - President of Botswana, 1998-2008
Sideeqah Tunde-Lawal - Muslim Youth Leader, Nigeria

Man`s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Ayn Rand

Curing Homosexuality—with Murder

Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz
Laguna Beach, California January 5, 2010

How many ways can you kill a person for being gay?

We like to use the word ‘barbarian’ these days to describe ancient war tactics, medieval religious torture and primitive ‘medical’ practices.

But the truth is barbaric practices are in current vogue in certain countries around the world. About 80 countries criminalize homosexual practices and of those about dozen allow the death penalty. Saudi Arabia is the most notorious, followed by Iran and more recently—since we ‘liberated’ it—Iraq.

In Baghdad where gangs seem to regulate the law, death squads have been ferreting out gay men for summary execution. Worse (if that’s possible), even people suspected or accused of being gay are gunned down with no consideration of truth.

In Afghanistan under the Taliban, they toppled brick walls on top of accused gays who were staked to the ground. This usually killed them but if it only severely maimed them, they were set free, as a sign from Allah!

This brings us to the most recent applicant to join the ‘death club’ against gays, Uganda. The trouble has been brewing for 9 months, ever since some anti-gay fundies from America went to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, to hold a pitiful and poorly attended seminar on curing gays of their sinful lifestyle. (Image: Uganda Coat of Arms)

Hardly anyone noticed or cared except the anti-gay press such as the unscrupulous gay-hating tabloid ‘Red Pepper’, which regularly increases its circulation with distorted and scandalous stories about homosexuals. It portrayed the seminar as the ‘second coming’ against the anti-Christ gay enemy.
(The most recent slander came on December 31, 2009 in a full page story with the personal details of people who, allegedly, 'bankroll Ugandan homos'.)

Worse by far—and the point of this blog--is the infamous action taken a few months ago by a Ugandan parliament member who swallowed the Americans’ homophobic ideas (discredited by virtually all knowledgeable professionals) about the ‘illness’ of homosexuals and how to cure it by prayer.

But why cure them when you just get rid of them?

This first-term MP, David Bahati, subsequently submitted a bill for debate in the national parliament that seeks the death penalty for gays and imposes jail sentences for anyone who does not report them, including parents, pastors and friends.

Despite the fact that homosexuality is already criminalized in Uganda, Bahati felt urged to proposed the ‘final solution’ for same-sexers . And the bill is getting serious support in homophobic Uganda. The bill’s fate should be voted on in early 2010.

Needless to say. great opposition has come from churches, human rights activists worldwide as well as governments including the US, UK, and European Union. Sweden has threatened to cut off its foreign aid to Uganda.

Hmmm.... curing gays by murder in the 21st century civilization. Seems barbarism is alive and well in the service of ignorance and hatred.

Sound shocking doesn’t it, but it’s really happening as I write this.

Author of Ugandan Gay Death Bill Fears For His Life

Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz.com
Laguna Beach, California
December 30, 2009

Another (bizarre and specious) public announcement comes from the author of the Ugandan gay death bill, David Bahati. In this outcry, instead of targeting gay people, he claims he is a target of hateful intentions and fears for his life. See this report from the San Francisco Examiner.

How awful!

Imagine this 'innocent' man being put under threat by some anonymous party who threatens his pursuit of life and liberty.

Now he might possibly (although unlikely) begin to appreciate the feelings of countless LGBT Ugandans who will live with the same fear thanks to his extremist and dangerous proposed bill he has submitted to the Ugandan parliament.

Uganda: Stealing the Spotlight From President Museveni

Neophyte Legislator Proposes Deadly Laws Against Gays: Unleashes International Protest

Richard Ammon, GlobalGayz
Laguna Beach, CA

Yoweri Museveni has been president of Uganda for 24 years in a country that had suffered decades of government corruption, mismanagement, bloody guerilla activity and civil war, all preceded by the the horrors of the Idi Amin tyranny in the seventies. His rise to power through danger and rebellion and military manipulations were fraught with complicated deals and reprisals along the way. The long path to power was a high-risk-high-stakes political chess game--which he won by stealth and bullets.

Holding that power from 1986 through the tumultuous eighties while 'sort of' leading the country to a democracy has been a delicate balancing act by this seasoned political warrior. He is big improvement over the 'strong man' dictators in Africa who ruled most African countries after independence in the seventies and eighties.

He has brought relative stability and economic growth to Uganda, despite widespread poverty and an intransigent rebel war in the northwest near war-torn Congo. In recent years he initiated an effective national response to HIV/AIDS. But the disease pandemic has been a complicated thorn in the side of the government as infection continues to spread and it has also stirred a long-hidden cultural taboo: homosexuality in Uganda.

There are laws that criminalize same-sex behavior but they have been unevenly applied. This has encouraged the growth of gay groups, at first in the service of HIV education and prevention, and more recently, advocating for health outreach to the highest HIV risk group--men who have sex with men (MSM) and their 'right' to non-discriminatory treatment. Not surprising, this activist agenda brought homosexuality onto the public stage, in full view of political and religious leaders who at first denied there were homosexuals in Uganda. Since this ruse failed they shifted to blaming the West for exporting the immoral acts to Uganda. (photo left: David Cato of SMUG gay group)

Needless to say, this heightened publicity brought increased harassment and recriminations against LGBT citizens. Some arrests were made and police tried to blame gays for the corruption of youth. It became a relatively low-level culture war for several years. Most Ugandans had much more to worry about than the presence a few 'different' people.

Then came 2009 and the war erupted into an international scandal. Three American 'reparative' advocates held a tiny but highly publicized seminar in Kampala during which they proclaimed their (unscientific and discredited) views that homosexuality was a disease that should be legally opposed and cured with prayer. Hardly anyone paid attention--with the exception of a neophyte first-term member of the Ugandan national parliament named David Bahati, who liked what he heard from the right-wing Americans.

Six months after the seminar (the Americans met with local legislators during their visit) Bahati sponsored the most deadly anti-gay bill ever presented to the government. The bill, he said, was encouraging "constructive criticism" to improve the existing laws against gays and insisted that 'strict measures' were needed to keep homosexuals from "recruiting" children. Among other things, the bill calls for anyone convicted of a homosexual act to face life imprisonment. "Serial offenders" also could face capital punishment.

As well, anyone who "aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage of acts of homosexuality" will receive seven years in prison if convicted. This includes landlords who rent property to homosexuals and anyone with "religious, political, economic or social authority" who fails to report a homosexual friend or acquaintance could receive three years in jail.

Needless to say this draconian and extreme proposal has resulted in world-wide condemnation and opposition from the United Nations, the European Union, western governments and religious leaders. Sweden has threatened to cut its foreign aid to Uganda.

This now presents Mr. Museveni--a president who has survived wars, political and economic crises, corruption, poverty, and an epidemic over the course of 24 years--with being upstaged by an upstart religious zealot legislator who has grabbed a tiger by the tail and is ignorant of the global consequences of his myopic bigotry. This surely was an embarrassment to the president, especially at the recent Commonwealth Nations conference where he was taken aside and warned by the British and Canadian Prime Ministers and pressed by the American secretary of state about this bizarre and regressive proposal. Even the Vatican has opposed the bill.

And how very ironic that Mr Bahati, who reviles the west for imposing their 'corrupt' lifestyle on Uganda's sovereignty should have been so attracted to another western 'import' in the form of a highly prejudicial and phony cure for homosexuality to the point of using it as a foundation for an evil proposal that flies in the face of all human rights decency. Talk about the blind leading the blind!