Local Connections to the Uganda Kill-the-Gays Law

I don't think we have talked at all here about the anti-homosexuality law that is being considered in Uganda. That's mostly because it's, well, it's Uganda, it's halfway around the world. But it does affect us, what's happening over there even has several connections to our Montgomery County and our public school district.

Uganda is considering a law that will make homosexuality a capital offense. The effort seems to have backing from some American groups -- you should see World Net Daily's video HERE. (I especially love the grand finale: "Like the great Doctor King told us, the moral arm of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Ugandans, stay on the right side of history.")

Surprisingly, there are several connections between what is going on in Uganda and goings-on in our public school district. Former PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) president Richard Cohen sent his staffer Caleb Lee Brundidge to Uganda to attend a conference to plan and promote the kill-the-gays law. Cohen's book is widely quoted by the leaders of the Ugandan anti-gay campaign -- Cohen is a Marylander from PG County who has been involved in our county's sex-education curriculum development, speaking to the MCPS Board of Education in 2005, when he was president of PFOX. Watch Rachel Maddow spell out the connection between Cohen and the Uganda campaign, and give him a chance to explain himself, HERE and HERE. Cohen is no longer president of PFOX, but PFOX still refers people to him for counseling and promotes his events.

The Montgomery County School District sends PFOX literature home with schoolchildren four times a year, and has appointed a PFOX board member who believes homosexual behavior should be criminalized to his third term on the citizens committee that advises the district on sex-ed policies.

A therapist for Cohen's organization, Caleb Lee Brundidge, was one of three Americans who addressed the recent anti-gay Family Life Network conference in Uganda (listen to him HERE). He had previously addressed our Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education in 2005, under the name Lee B. Brundidge, in order to influence the school district's decisions regarding classes on sexual orientation. He told the board, "I am here to tell you that ex-gay people exist, and I am one of them." Richard Cohen's International Healing Foundation's "therapists" page says (HERE) that Brundidge had moved from Atlanta, Georgia to New Jersey, then to Maryland, and on to Phoenix, Arizona. Most news accounts describe him as living in Phoenix.

Even as American bigots are motivating and supporting the Ugandans in making homosexuality a capital crime, the movement in Uganda seems to be encouraging American bigots. I don't think it is coincidental that MCPS sex-ed adviser and MoCo resident Peter Sprigg told Chris Matthews on Hardball recently that homosexual behavior should be against the law. Subsequently, Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan has said he, too, thinks it should be criminalized, and Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association has also gone on record as saying that homosexuality should be criminalized. They are not calling for the actual killing of LGBT people, as Uganda is considering, but only jailing them. (The World Net Daily video I linked above does suggest that capital punishment is what the Founding Fathers intended.)

PFOX is the ultimate passive aggressive organization. They never say anything negative about gay people, they just offer them "change" and argue that everybody should have "self-determination," as if you can determine your own sexual orientation -- as if some individuals "self-determined" to become gay and lesbian. PFOX has not gone on the record as saying that they support Uganda's efforts to kill gay people. But last month they posted on their blog the most bizarre news story. They got this from a site called AllAfrica.com. I hate to rebroadcast this kind of ugliness here, but this is what PFOX considers a blogworthy news story in January 2010:

23 March 2009

Kampala — A man shocked parents on Sunday when he confessed to recruiting school children into homosexuality as part of a programme to promote the practice in Ugandan schools.

George Oundo said funders gave them "much money" and training abroad and that he would target mostly the needy children who had problems of tuition and pocket money and "others who like outings."

Oundo warned parents to know their children's friends. Homosexuals, he added, were targeting mostly children "because they are easy to initiate and they like easy things".

Oundo said he got seriously involved in promoting homosexuality in 2003. "I was taken to Nairobi for training," he said. "I used to supply pornographic materials in form of books and compact discs showing homosexuality to young boys in many schools," he explained.

The training, he said, was facilitated by Gay and Lesbian Coalition. "I also got the pupils' telephone contacts. We used to meet with both girls and boys in schools during ceremonial parties," he asserted.

He said he only stopped his activities after becoming a Born-again Christian. He told all this to about 50 parents attending a seminar at Hotel Triangle, Kampala on Sunday. It was organised by Family Life Network, a local charity which promotes family values. Uganda - Homosexual Admits Recruiting School Children

Yes, the original article was written in March, 2009.

PFOX added a note at the top of the blog post:

Will Rachel Maddow discuss this on her show?

Actually, I would love to see Rachel Maddow discuss the fact that PFOX, claiming to be friends of gays, is republishing this kind of article, which is a perfect example of the kind of paranoid fantasy entertained and loved by the most strident gay-hater. There are people who really think this happens, that huge, well-funded organizations of gay people are actively recruiting children to join their shadowy and evil "lifestyle," not only in faraway Uganda but right here in the USA. Such a belief is cited as justification for violence, there is no reason to publish such an article beyond inciting prejudice and discrimination. And here is PFOX actively stirring the pot, going halfway across the world to Uganda to find an article describing the paranoid hater's most vivid fantasy. Friends of gays, not so much.

There have been some apologists, by the way, who have tried to say that Uganda's law won't really kill gay people. Yes it will. Under the law they can kill you for letting a gay couple use your apartment, or for not ratting a gay friend out to authorities, lots of things. Ex-Gay Watch this week linked to an excellent video that goes through the text of the law, highlighting terms and their definitions, which can be lost in the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. Watch this:



Also, I should point out that Warren Throckmorton has been following the Uganda situation very closely, almost obsessively I thought, but he is justified, this is an important developing situation. Warren doesn't always see things our way, you might say, but he provides a lot of links and keeps track of what's going on, he even has the occasional interview with someone involved in the situation.

Uganda is not half a world away, what's happening in Uganda is closely linked to what's happening in our little county, in our little school district.