The New York Times reports on the role three evangelical Christian leaders from the United States played in inspiring the proposed bill in Uganda which would make homosexuality a crime to be punished by execution:
Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks. The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.
For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”
Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.
In December, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out against the push for legal murder of LGB people for no reason other than their sexual orientation. Political conservatives and other religious leaders in the US have also spoken out against the bill, including Rev. Rick Warren. While I am happy to see even some of the most homophobic groups speaking out against this extreme violation of civil rights, it saddens me that this matter is even an issue. In the name of religion, specifically Christianity, influential leaders are spreading hate around the world. It’s globalization meets homophobia meets religion meets colonization.
