Uganda's Draconian Anti-Gay Bill: Inspired by the U.S.

[ccharles000]

The late-November afternoon sun bore down on the park in downtown Kampala, and all along the benches, Ugandan office workers took their siestas. There could have been no less likely setting for criminal conspiracies to topple an East African state. Still, the doctor's voice dropped a notch when an office worker in a brown suit settled in close by. The medic shifted a battered fedora over his eyes. "I am the gay doctor," the physician whispered to me, making sure nobody around heard. He talked about the gay and lesbian couples who go to his office to avoid ridicule in public hospitals. "They know they can trust me, and trust is a big issue," he said. "There is the stigma of being gay, but also the stigma of being positive. They are such hidden communities. Nobody wants to deal with their problems."

In a matter of weeks, the Ugandan doctor's admission to TIME could land him in jail and his patients on death row. An anti-homosexuality bill now before Uganda's Parliament would include some of the harshest anti-gay regulations in the world. If the bill becomes law, the doctor, who asked that his name not be published, could be prosecuted for "aiding and abetting homosexuality." In one version of the bill, his sexually active HIV-positive patients could be found guilty of practicing acts of "aggravated homosexuality," a capital crime, according to the bill.

Thanks to a clause in the would-be law that punishes "failure to disclose the offense," anybody who heard the doctor's conversation could be locked up for failing to turn him in to the police. Even a reporter scribbling the doctor's words could be found to have "promoted homosexuality," an act punishable by five to seven years in prison. And were any of the Ugandans in the park to sleep with someone of the same sex in another country, the law would mandate their extradition to Uganda for prosecution. Only terrorists and traitors are currently subject to extraterritorial jurisdiction under Ugandan law. Even murderers don't face that kind of judicial reach.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1946645,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

[xchrom]

1. 'aggravated homosexuality'.

this 'aggravated' homo is actively lobbying the episcopal church to stop aid to uganda.

period.

[NMMNG]

2. American "Christians"

They can't implement what they want to over here (and must be content with what they can get, such as banning marriage, adoption, and so on), so they take their hate-fest overseas and get their deepest desires fulfilled in places like Uganda. Meanwhile apologists over here scoff at the idea that Christians harbor any desire to see LGBT people harmed, even killed. :eyes:

Jesus would weep openly.

[951-Riverside]

3. This is Uganda not California

[eleny]

4. Rachel devoting the first part of her program tonight to this

[ruggerson]

5. But Obama tells us we must befriend these people and reach out to them

[NMMNG]

6. They just have different viewpoints, you know

Find some common ground with them.

[Enthusiast]

7. I do not doubt

that so-called Christian (extremists) would adopt similar legislation here if they could.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. its just another viewpoint that we must respect due to the religiousity of these people

especially rick warren. we must build alliances with that branch of aggravated christianity















:sarcasm:

[Starry Messenger]

9. More from the article:

One of the bill's loudest supporters is a charismatic pastor, Martin Ssempa, who heads a Ugandan campus AIDS eradication organization that is funded in part by the U.S. and who was associated with the global outreach of Southern California's Saddleback Church, run by Rick Warren, author of best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life. Ssempa has a penchant for burning condoms. In 2007, he organized a rally against homosexuality to protest "homosexual agents and activists" who were "infiltrating Uganda." Asked how the anti-homosexuality bill might affect the fight against HIV and AIDS, Ssempa seemed bemused. "I don't see what this bill has to do with HIV," he told TIME. Warren, who has called Uganda a "purpose-driven nation," cut ties with Ssempa in October as controversy over the bill grew.

Getting it now people?

[Odin2005]

10. Religion sucks, period.