Uganda's anti homosexuality bill

It's hard to describe to people who have never lived anywhere other than Canada what it means not to have human rights. It's hard to describe what it means when I say "I liked living in Africa, but I'm glad to be back in Canada because I really appreciate having rights as a woman." It's hard for others to understand what I mean when I say "the laws were there but the culture was against women's and LGBTQ rights."

Maybe it isn't fair to refer to these things as cultural. After all, lesbian woman in South Africa before colonisation used to be able to pay dowry and marry a woman, so long as they did so inside of certain specific cultural norms. It was assumed these marriages weren't sexual in nature-- but looking back can we really be sure of that?

Maybe instead of culture, I have to pin the blame on homophobia squarely on the history of colonisation and Christianity.

Living under a colonial dictatorship for more than a hundred years has given many places in the world a complex relationship to authority and power that is less apparent in Canadian society. When I asked one of my friends if South Africa would ever have a woman president he laughed and said,
“No. I can’t have a woman above me. No man in this country wants to have a woman above him!”

This viewpoint on power and relationships between people as essentially unequal- either you have it and I don't, or I have it and you don't- fuels the continuing lack of women's empowerment in countries suffering from a history of colonisation and dictatorship.

A more recent and stinging trend is taking place in the halls of religion, particularly Christianity. Right wing advocacy groups, having been discredited in Canada (less so in the United States) find themselves turning to other countries in the world to try and shape political policies. This, according to Dr. Robert Carr, are the highly funded powers behind Uganda's so called anti-homosexuality bill; not traditional cultures or beliefs, but powerful Christian groups from Canada and the United States.

This bill would imprison LGBTQ people for life, or kill them. It would send parents to prison for not reporting their children for three years; and the same to teachers. A landlord who gives housing to suspected LGBTQ people could face 7 years of imprisonment.

These are the laws that right wing groups from Canada and the United States have imposed on other soverign countries. While human rights are seen as a Western imposition on other cultures, in this case isn’t lack of human rights an imposition as well?

People, if you feel the way I do about these proposals you will support the movement against these laws in Uganda.

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Contacts to protest... (from facebook group)

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198541255168&v=info

Read the bill: http://wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/anti-homosexuality-bill-2009.pdf


President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
State House Nakasero
email: info@statehouse.go.ug

Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi
email: ps@opm.go.ug

Speaker of the Parliament
Edward Ssekandi Kiwanuka
email: speaker@parliament.go.ug

Minister of Gender, Labour, and Social Affairs Honorable Opio Gabriel
email: ps@mglsd.go.ug

Chair of the Uganda Human Rights Commission
Med Kaggwa
email: uhrc@uhrc.ug

Directorate for Ethics and Integrity
email: info@dei.go.ug

Chair of the Uganda Diplomatic Human Rights Working Groups
Mathisen Gørild
email: gorild.mathisen@mfa.no

Please also send a copy to:
Ambassador to the Republic of Uganda Embassy of the United States of America
Jerry P. Lanier
email: kampalawebcontact@state.gov

Christian pastors in Uganda:
Martin Ssempa
ssempam@gmail.com

Stephen Langa
stephenlanga@yahoo.com

You may contact Watato Church (formerly Kampala Pentecostal Church and closely associated with both Ssempa and Langa) at connect@watotochurch.com.