Richard Cohen and the Creeping Ugliness in Africa

Terrible things are happening in Africa. As this Guardian article notes, "As far as gay rights are concerned, it would appear that much of Africa is going backwards." Because this blog has a local focus on Montgomery County, Maryland, we have not talked about the issue here. But it is turning out that there is a local connection. You may have seen Rachel Maddow's brutal takedown of Maryland "ex-gay" Richard Cohen on her show this week -- watch the remarkable footage HERE. Cohen was one of those who spoke to the Montgomery County school board to oppose the new sex-ed curriculum, he was President of PFOX, who actively opposed our health classes and has filed lawsuits against the school district. Maddow had him on her show because Cohen's writing is being used in Uganda to support legislation calling for the death penalty for homosexuality.

I am going to skip around the article in Sunday's Guardian, discussing how the American Christian right is supporting brutal anti-gay law-making in Africa.

Uganda is likely to pass a law within months that will make homosexuality a capital offence, joining 37 other countries in the continent where American evangelical Christian groups are increasingly spreading bigotry

"Learned behaviour can be unlearned," said David Bahati. "You can't tell me that people are born gays. It is foreign influence that is at work."

Bahati has just presented his anti-homosexuality bill 2009 to Uganda's parliament. The bill, which will be debated within a fortnight and is expected to become law by February, will allow homosexuality to be punishable by death. Anti-gay bigots plunge Africa into new era of hate crimes

The idea that homosexuality is learned is nonsensical and can be traced directly back to the American "ex-gay" hoax, which teaches that "change is possible." Richard Cohen's life mission has been to tell people they can stop being gay.

It is hard to imagine why any American would want to get involved with this kind of legislation in a foreign country, except maybe to denounce it and try to promote diplomatic pressure to stop it. It appears that anti-gay attitudes are spreading around the African continent.

There is wide support for Bahati's law which, while being an extreme piece of anti-gay legislation, is not unique. As far as gay rights are concerned, it would appear that much of Africa is going backwards. Nigeria has a similar bill waiting to reach its statute books and already allows the death penalty for homosexuality in northern states, as does Sudan. Burundi criminalised homosexuality in April this year, joining 37 other African nations where gay sex is already illegal. Egypt and Mali are creeping towards criminalisation, using morality laws against same-sex couples.

The Ugandan bill extends existing laws to make it illegal to promote homosexuality by talking or writing about it, and forcing people to tell the authorities about anyone they know who is gay. The bill, said Bahati, 35, an MP from the ruling party, aims to "protect the cherished culture of the people of Uganda against the attempts of sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of sex promiscuity on the people of Uganda".

After a lifetime of hearing about bloody massacres, mass rapes, brutal dictatorships, violent revolutions, famine and starvation, Americans may feel numb to the real lives of people across the African continent. We simply cannot imagine the scale of these kinds of tragedies. Yet, it seems, there are some in our country who do tune in to the African cultures, in order to help make things even worse.

[Bahati] denied reports that international pressure might result in parts of the bill being toned down. "We are not going to yield to any international pressure – we cannot allow people to play with the future of our children and put aid into the game. We are not in the trade of values. We need mutual respect."

But many suspect that it was outsiders who inspired this bill in the first place. In March, Bahati met several prominent anti-gay US Christian activists who attended a conference in Uganda where they pledged to "wipe out" homosexuality. The conference featured Scott Lively, president of California's anti-gay Abiding Truth Ministries and co-author of The Pink Swastika, a book claiming that leading Nazis were gay. Also there was Don Schmierer, on the board of Exodus International, which promotes the "ex-gay" movement, believing people can change their sexuality and be redeemed. The third extremist evangelical to attend was Caleb Lee Brundidge, who is linked to Richard Cohen who believes that psychotherapy can "cure" homosexuality.

Bahati's bill was drawn up within weeks of the conference, but it has only just begun to cause waves within America's powerful evangelical community. Legalising killing gay people has triggered a bad press for the bill.

That last sentence is breathtaking. Bad press, oh my! I would think the bad thing about "legalising killing gay people" would be ... killing gay people.

To his benefit, Pastor Rick Warren, who you will remember delivered a benediction at the Obama inauguration, spoke out against the law.

This weekend, Rick Warren, the most powerful evangelical in America, released a video statement. "As an American pastor, it is not my role to interfere with the politics of other nations, but it is my role to speak out on moral issues," he said, adding that the bill was "unjust, extreme and un-Christian toward homosexuals".

Okay, you gotta give him credit for that, even if he is only trying to prevent bad press.

Skipping down...

In Entebbe last week, 200 religious leaders, under the powerful umbrella group Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, demanded diplomatic ties be severed with "ungodly" donor countries, including the UK, Sweden and Canada, who are "bent on forcing homosexuality on Ugandans".

Joshua Kitakule, the council's secretary-general, said: "Those countries should respect our spiritual values. They shouldn't interfere. All senior religious leaders have been given copies of the bill to read and educate people in churches and mosques."

Further down...

Ugandan newspapers often out "homos" and the bill will force many more like Nyombi to leave, said Peter Tatchell, veteran gay rights campaigner. "In many cases, these countries are using laws imposed by the British in colonial times. Before that, homosexuality was actually tolerated or accepted in the traditional cultures.

"The right-wing are losing the battle in the US, so they are exploiting the poverty-stricken developing world. The response of the Commonwealth is pathetic. Of the 80 countries who criminalise same sex-relationships around the world, over 40 of them are in the Commonwealth – where is the concern for human rights?"

It is not just Africa where homophobia is rife – Iran and Jamaica have seen homosexuals imprisoned and attacked and many American states have laws against sodomy. In South Africa, gay rights have advanced: its first gay pride march was held in 1995 and it has now legalised civil same-sex marriage.

But for developing nations, the attraction of right-wing organisations with dollars to spend, combined with fears over a creeping "westernisation" of societies, is increasing the demonisation of gay people.

In 2004, Ruben del Prado, co-ordinator of the Joint United Nations programme on HIV/Aids in Uganda, was prematurely transferred out of the country after he held meetings with lesbian and gay groups about preventing HIV/Aids. The Ugandan government later accused him of holding secret meetings with undesirable groups. Since then, NGOs and aid officials have kept silent.

This is a tough kind of problem, because Ugandan society is so different from ours, it is hard for us to know what to do. Even as Westerners become more liberal in their acceptance of diversity, other parts of the world are cracking down, forcing a kind of tyrannical conformity that is shocking. It is not our place to pressure members of other cultures to behave like us, to dress like us, but it is our place, if America is to consider itself a world leader, to do what we can to promote justice around the globe.

This article covers a lot of ground, and I am omitting most of it. Here's how it ends:

In Uganda, the ethics and integrity minister sees the uproar surrounding the bill as positive. Uganda was "providing leadership" to the world, said James Nsaba Buturo.

"It is with joy we see that everyone is interested in what Uganda is doing, and it is an opportunity for Uganda to provide leadership where it matters most. So we are here to see a piece of legislation that will not only define what the country stands for, but provide leadership around the world."

It has certainly created some religious unity. It came as the Muslim Tabliq youth revealed plans to form what they called an anti-gay squad, to seek out and expose homosexuality.

Sheikh Multah Bukenya, a Tabliq cleric, said: "It is the work of the community to put an end to bad practices like homosexuality."

But Gerald Sentogo, of Sexual Minorities Uganda, said the bill was inhumane. "It violates every aspect of a human being. I mean, you cannot tell me you will kill me because I'm gay," he said. "How will somebody know about my sexuality unless he comes to my bedroom? You will trust nobody because everyone will become a spy over the other.

"Imagine people fighting over other issues and somebody will say you are a homosexual to get rid of you, and then you are arrested and you spend seven years in jail or life imprisonment."

American nuts like Richard Cohen are being taken seriously overseas, and are having an effect. Cohen may say he does not approve of the legislation itself, but it is a natural consequence of the inflammatory things he has been saying all these years, and they are holding up his book and quoting from it to support their positions (plus, his organization sent somebody over to work with the Ugandans on this). I think this article is probably correct in saying that the religious right in the US is realizing that their crusade of hatred is failing within our borders, and so are taking the show to the developing world where reaction is not likely to be so sophisticated, people will not be so well educated.

What they get out of it, I don't know, but I know that the good people of the world have to remain vigilant against this creeping ugliness.