The Current, a radio show in Canada hosted by Anna Maria Tremonti, did a piece on the current situation of LGBT people in Uganda in light of new proposed legislation that would further criminalize homosexuality and create penalties for people who support the rights of LGBT people.
The Current’s summary: Pt 3 – Gays in Uganda
A proposed new law would require Ugandans to report gays and lesbians to police. The proposed law has left the LGBT community outraged but also afraid.
Anna spoke to Julius Kagwa from SMUG, the blogger from GayUganda, Jeff Sharlet who wrote “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” and Monica Mbaru, IGLHRC’s Africa Program Coordinator.
Caster Semenya has done the unthinkable in women’s sports: she runs “like a man.” Besting her sister runners by a longshot in the 800 meters in the World Championships in Berlin a few weeks ago, she drew the instant condemnation that girls across the decades have drawn whenever they are too smart in class, too forceful in the board room, too strong in the gym, or too accomplished in the workplace.
You don’t have to be a world class runner to recognize this moment – whether you came into womanhood at the height of the women’s movement or the hip-hop era, not much has changed. Women exceeding gendered expectations of achievement are often forced out of the game at the suggestion that their drive to accomplish exceeds the boundaries of genteel femininity. The only worse epithet than being called a “feminist” these days is to be called a man.
From Babe Zaharias to Hillary Clinton, women who refuse to be limited by what-has-been must endure a public that is deeply ambivalent about women trailblazers.
She also stands in a long line of gender variant people who threaten the very definitions of “man” and “woman” and call into question the ways that we organize our sports, our toy stores, and even the pink and blue cribs in our nurseries.
Over and over this week, I have read various commentary that distinguishes between “sex,” a supposed biological fact and “gender” which is socially constructed. The Olympic committee, according to this wisdom, must conduct a multi-layered examination – physical, psychological, and hormonal – to determine if Semenya is “objectively,” “biologically” female. For while the characteristics we arbitrarily assign to masculine and feminine genders obviously vary greatly across cultures, races, and centuries, the biology of sex is put forth as a fixed, unwavering truth.
All of which is non-sense. Social beings embedded in certain cultures, traditions, and scientific eras create the list of “qualifiers” for being biologically female or male. I find it interesting that I couldn’t find the all-important “list” in any of the dozens of articles I read this week on Semenya’s trial. A vagina apparently isn’t sufficient to qualify a person as biologically female. Testosterone figures into the calculus – how much is too much? There’s a mysterious, undefined psychological aspect to the testing. What characteristics trump others in the quest to qualify as biologically female?
Shortly after the medal ceremony, Semenya submitted herself to a public exam on her “sex,” dimming a moment that should have been a shining celebration of her stunning achievement. In response, the South African government, family and friends stood behind their gender non-conforming daughter, noting that a long history of racialized sexism in the Olympics includes a chapter in which efforts were made to separate all Black women athletes from competing against their white counterparts because Black women were regarded as not-quite-female due to their race.
While whispers of high levels of testosterone and ambiguous genitalia light up the blogosphere, we must ask ourselves – why isn’t anyone listening to Caster Semenya? She was raised a girl, has competed as a girl for years before this great victory on the international stage, and most importantly — Semenya identifies as a woman.
If there’s no other lesson that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights movement has taught the larger culture over the past forty years, I hope it is this one: the right to self-determination is paramount. Gender variant people around the world are watching Semenya’s struggle with a mixture of pride, anxiety and hope. No authority – religious, parental or in this case Olympic – should trump one’s right to self-determination, identity and expression.
by Jamie Grant
Director of the Policy Institute at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
The night before Budapest’s LGBT Pride march, the tension was real. Annual LGBT Pride festivals have been held no fewer than 14 times in this Eastern European city, but in 2007 and 2008, marchers were verbally and physically attacked by counter-demonstrators—skinheads and far-right extremists—and assaulted with eggs, firecrackers and petrol bombs. Riot police used water cannons and tear gas to separate rioters from marchers and detained 45 people. At least eight people were wounded in the clashes, including two policemen. Demonstrators charged that police were not adequately prepared and had not provided enough protection.
This year, march organizers were buoyed by an amazing video message from U.S. celebrity Whoopi Goldberg and a statement of support signed by 13 foreign embassies, including South Africa and the United States—two countries often conspicuously silent on international LGBT issues. A representative of the Dutch Gay and Lesbian Police Officers’ Association, who was coincidentally staying at the same guesthouse as me, had come a few days earlier to train Hungarian LGBT leadership on responding to hate crimes during a Pride march.
I woke up early on the morning of the march, wanting to be alert and prepared for whatever the day might hold. I walked the length of the march corridor, watching workers set up two-meter tall fencing along the whole route. Hundreds of policemen, in full Kevlar riot gear and gas masks, were deploying along the main maarch route and the side streets feeding onto Andrassy Street, one of Budapest’s main boulevards.
The march was scheduled to start at 1 pm. The organizers—Rainbow Pride Hungary—recommended that children, people with disabilities and the elderly not attend the march for their own safety. The crowd seemed small at the starting site. Fewer than 200 of us milled about in a small space between the fences that had been set up in the impressive Hösök Ter (Heroes Square). Hungarian activists had chosen the starting site and the march route to forge a historical connection to the heroes of the Hungarian Revolution against Soviet domination. The nervousness in the small crowd was palpable—a balloon popped and everyone jumped. But the crowd was nothing if not committed and there was a sense of determination and maybe just a bit of the stoic realism for which Eastern Europe is famous.
The march stepped off fashionably late. But by 1:30 the ubiquitously unflappable club anthems were booming from huge speakers on the lead truck and we were marching. The crowd had swelled to 2,000 by the time we were a third of the way down the march corridor. I was proud (and relieved) to be marching side-by-side with Juris Lavrikovs of Latvia, and Paata Sabelashvili, of Georgia, two gay men who are on the staff and board (respectively) of ILGA-Europe. In addition to being lovely, committed, sophisticated activists, these guys were also a lot of fun to spend the day with. ILGA-Europe is a tremendously important organization, based in Brussels and providing support to the LGBT movement in Europe.
As the march moved through the streets of Budapest, I learned the importance of the term “throwing distance.” The police had established the march corridor so that anti-gay demonstrators were corralled on the side streets, at all times at least a city block from the marchers. I had to strain to hear their taunts. Some gay men I met later at the guest house told me that the demonstrators numbered no more than 200, seemed disorganized and aimless, and that their taunts seemed less directed at the LGBT community than at some nameless, faceless threat to Hungarian nationalism. The media reported that anti-gay demonstrators burned a rainbow flag, and several dozen were arrested for disorderly conduct during the course of the day. One British national was reported to have been attacked by skinheads.
The police seemed committed to ensuring that the violence of previous years would not be repeated. But for most of the activists that I met, there was a sense that while the security was appreciated, we had been cut off from the rest of the city. We may have been out of the closet, but we weren’t necessarily in the streets. One of the goals of LGBT Pride should be increased visibility—that’s the difference between a Gay Pride march, which invites, cajoles and demands a political interaction from spectators, and a Gay Pride parade, which is mainly a celebration of pride and done for our own self-actualization and enjoyment.
But still the march was great. At 49, I thought I’d lost my gusto for the very special ping that comes from marching down the middle of a street and claiming my queerness in the company of my fellows. There’s still something wildly empowering about it. Special recognition must go to some of our steadfast allies. Amnesty International’s delegation was strong and visible, as was the Hungarian Humanist Movement. For the most part, these two groups are key allies of the LGBT movement worldwide.
The march ended in a small park called Diak Ter, and again the organizers wisely decided to not hold a big rally or party that could have ultimately become a target for skinheads intent on finding an outlet for misdirected anger. Instead, dozens of well-trained volunteers carefully dispersed the crowd toward public transportation hubs. Katherine Fobear, a very cool young American from Detroit, who is studying lesbian social anthropology in Amsterdam and had come to Hungary for Pride, informed me that a lesbian volunteer had been one of the few casualties of the day. Three skinheads caught this woman, still wearing her Pride T-shirt, on her way to the train and assaulted her. We’re trying to get in touch with Labrisz, the Hungarian lesbian group (www.labrisz.hu) to get more information on her well-being.
My friend from the Dutch LGBT police officer’s association suggested that while the Hungarian police had done a good job, more effective crowd control techniques would have enabled them to contain the protesters rather than the marchers, while still maintaining order and security. Perhaps the relative success of this year’s march will allow both the organizers and the police to feel more secure about their ability to protect the marchers when they are in closer proximity to their opponents. Maybe next year the march can be a more interactive dialog between LGBT people, our supporters, and the small minority still obsessed with shouting down freedom.
IGLHRC’s Executive Director, Cary Alan Johnson, will march in Budapest’s 2009 Gay Pride parade, which will be held on September 5th in the Hungarian capital. Cary’s report, along with multimedia files from the event, will be posted on IGLHRC’s blog next week.
Last year’s pride parade in Budapest turned violent when right-wing extremists attacked marchers with stones and Molotov cocktails, and clashed with security forces. During those riots, eight people were injured; police took forty-five people into custody and used water cannons and tear gas to break up the neo-Nazi assailants.
Watch images from last year’s gay pride in Budapest, including scenes of violence, on Youtube:
In the days prior to this year’s pride parade, tensions have been growing between both sides of the debate. On August 28th, thirteen embassies in Hungary issued a joint press release to express their “support for and solidarity with” the event. The countries whose missions supported the march are Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The statement of thirteen embassies came on the same day as Ilona Ekes, a member of the Hungarian parliament’s Human Rights, Minorities and Religious Affairs Committee, called on police to ban the gay parade, and instead organize a social and professional dialogue on homosexuality, which she referred to as a “mental injury.”
Earlier last month, renowned American comedian Whoopi Goldberg posted a Youtube message in support of the gay pride parade in Budapest. Whoopi’s message, addressed to the Hungarian people, can be viewed below:
Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation with a police officer who works with refugees in Kayseri. I asked her about the relationship between the local police and members of the LGBT refugee community. She said that the police have only one problem with the refugees: “Some of them dress very provocatively. Their hairstyles, their heavy make-up and their revealing clothes make the locals uncomfortable.” Then she paused for a few seconds and said, “Even I, as a female police officer, will be harassed if I wear flashy lipstick. People around here are very hospitable, but traditional.”
I shared the police officer’s concerns with a group of Iranian refugees that I met last night. They disagreed: “I can’t even wear sunglasses. They think sunglasses are too erotic,” one gay man commented. Another said: “I tried. I swear I tried to look like the locals. But they can spot us a mile away. As soon as they notice we don’t walk like macho straight men, they start chasing us and laughing at us.”
A transgender woman told me that:
Every time I walk down the street, schoolboys throw trash at me. And once, when I was walking downtown, the police wanted to arrest me because they said I looked like a Russian prostitute. Police officers made fun of me and called me names. As they were forcing me into their car, I screamed and hit them with my handbag. I said: “You have no right to treat me like dirt because I am trans.” Finally, other officers intervened. They said it was a case of mistaken identity and I could go. I complained about how I was treated by their colleagues. They told me: “Quit making a big deal out of it. Nothing happened. They didn’t rape you, did they? Now go home!”
A social worker from a local NGO that supports refugees tells me how difficult it is to get assistance for LGBT Iranians:
We have a couple of well-organized faith-based Islamic charities. They mainly support the local needy population but occasionally also reach out to refugees…. The party line is that they don’t discriminate but when I send gay people their way, they say: “We will review you case and call you back.” Then after giving them a good run around, they say: “Sorry, we have no resources”…. I had one case of an Iranian gay man who really needed help. I told him go to those charities, but act straight so they might feel sorry for him and give him some help. It worked.
The local NGO does what it can to coordinate the minimal local support that is available and distribute it among the refugees. But with only one full-time staff member, the organization is ill-equipped to deal with the needs of close to 1,000 refugees in Kayseri.
As I get ready to leave this beautiful city and its forgotten refugee population, I can’t help wonder who, in Turkey, will look out for my fellow LGBT Iranians. To many locals, they are a bunch of moral degenerates en route to the sinful West. To many Turkish officials, they are a financial burden only adding to the problems of this country’s fragile economy. To many local and international relief and refugee agencies, they are yet another part of the endless flow of migrating people needing assistance. But to me, they are decent, inspired, and extremely courageous human beings. Despite on-going challenges, they have consistently fought for dignity and human rights. And they are willing to keep fighting as long as needed. I should know; I am a gay Iranian refugee myself.
Imagine you are taking a leisurely stroll through a farmer’s market, examining the produce at different fruit stands. Suddenly you hear a stranger behind you screaming. You look back and see that a middle-aged man is pointing his finger at you and shouting to the crowd: “This whore is a lesbian. You can screw her for 2 dollars.”
This is what happened a few days ago to Leila (not her real name), a very attractive lesbian refugee from Iran who has been in Kayseri for the last year. Leila used to be a nurse at a hospital in Iran. Then her male colleagues found out about her sexual orientation. Sexual harassment and blackmail followed: men asked her to have sex with them and threatened to report her “sexual perversion” to government or hospital officials if she refused. Life became unbearable. Leila, who also faced harassment from her neighbors, decided that she could no longer live in Iran.
Now Leila lives a modest life in Turkey. She spends 12 hours a day, 6 days a week washing dishes at a wedding reception hall. She told me that after 16 months of living in exile in this conservative community, she has lost her morale: “There are days I don’t want to get out of bed. I just want to die…What kind of life is this? I have a university degree, but now I’m working illegally for hours on end, minding my business and people still stop me on the street and harass me. What have I done to deserve this cruel punishment?”
Leila is so depressed that she often cries at work. Her Turkish colleagues try to comfort her. But Leila can’t tell them about her problems. She knows that as soon as she tells them about her sexual orientation, her co-workers will stop caring about her and her boss will likely ask her to leave. So instead she responds to their inquiries by describing a paralyzed husband who is dying at home. Lying flat-out about the most important part of her identity bothers Leila to no end: “I fled Iran because people there were judgmental and I had to constantly lie about who I am. Now here I am: a refugee in another prejudiced community, working like crazy to make minimum wage, and telling lies again to protect myself… Is this life worth living?”
Leila left Iran with Sima (not her real name), another lesbian friend. Both women are in their early 30’s. Sima’s own story is harrowing. Her father caught her with a girlfriend when she was in high school, and in punishment forbade her to go to school. Instead, since her teenage years, Sima has supported herself by working. Her family forced her into a heterosexual marriage, which ended in divorce. On the verge of being forced into a second marriage, Sima couldn’t take it any more. She fled to Turkey. Now in Kayseri, she works 10 hours days as a day laborer for the meager sum of 10 dollars a day. “I can’t even get sick,” she says. “One doctor’s visit will cost me a full month’s worth of my salary. Who will pay the rent then?”
Sima considers herself lucky to have escaped Iran: “I know lesbians who have no financial means to get out of that hell hole. Their families beat them up, their husbands abuse them, and their neighbors joke about their appearance…. At least I managed to get my life and run.”
Sima lives with two other Iranian lesbian refugees. When I arrived at their house, they had just returned from work. The water supply had been temporarily cut off and they kept apologizing for not having water to make tea for me.
Sima and Leila’s stories touched me. I told them I wanted to write about them. Leila thought for a few seconds and said: “I hope people who read your story don’t feel sorry for us. We don’t want anybody’s pity. I have worked all my life to make it on my own…. We are capable people…. All I am asking is to be treated fairly. Is there anywhere on the planet where people would respect me as a human being, and not judge me on my sexuality?”
Hossein Alizadeh
Click here to follow this story and read Hossein’s next blog from Kayseri.
Last night was a sleepless one: I spent the night in a small, rather uncomfortable hotel room filled with the lingering aroma of cigarette smoke. But as I tossed and turned, I remembered that many LGBT refugees would find my room in this rather run-down hotel to be a luxury. Most of them share a humble place with several people, and consider themselves lucky if they can go to bed with food in their stomachs.
Yesterday, one of the refugees told me how he ended up living for a whole month on bread and tea, which he could afford to buy only once a day. Another person was thrilled that the UNHCR gives him and his partner 81 Turkish Lira (about $55 US a month) to live on. In a country where the official poverty line is $450 US, this is peanuts. But most refugees are not even able to get this much cash to survive on. This refugee told me that he went through so much hardship and humiliation both in Iran and Turkey, that when the UNHCR interviewed him about his case, his story brought the UN officer to tears.
Yet another refugee told me how degrading it was to report his status as an asylum seeker to the local Turkish police station in a small conservative town. As soon the translator found out he was gay, he summoned other police officers to the interview room to laugh at the “freak case.” The translator asked him intimate questions about his sex life, and then laughed out loud as he told the other officers that, “the fags take it up their ass.” The police recorded the “hilarious asylum interview” on their mobile phones and sent the audio files around for the entertainment of other police officers. Soon the gay refugee discovered that, thanks to the authorities, everyone in the small town knew about his sexual orientation and his asylum case.
I asked the refugees to join me for a meal in a buffet-style restaurant filled with middle-class Turks. There was nothing fancy about the restaurant and the food was simple and delicious. As I invited my guests to help themselves to whatever they liked, I saw them hesitate. After a few seconds, one turned to me and said: “Thanks for the offer, but we really don’t know what these dishes are.” I reminded myself that those who can’t afford to buy even a loaf of bread a day are hardly capable of treating themselves to what is considered “everyday Turkish cuisine.”
Over the meal, I learn how difficult it is to find—and keep—a job in Turkey. One gender conforming gay man was fired from his job because he didn’t look like a Muslim (even though he is). Another worked for a week, was fired, and was paid only two days wages. A third had to work for 8 hours a day but could only make 200 Turkish Lira ($120) a month washing dishes. When you are a gay refugee, people exploit you, call you names, even physically assault you, and then ask you to leave the job, refusing to pay you what you earned.
After the meal I got a chance to take a walk in downtown Kayseri. It is a beautiful city, bounded by snow-covered mountains. To me, the people are warm and friendly. But I know this is not how many gay refugees experience this city. To them, society is often hostile and inhospitable. I wonder how my life would have been if I was in their place—without money in my pocket or travel documents to give me freedom of movement. It is a chilling thought.
Hossein Alizadeh
Click here to follow this story and read Hossein’s next blog from Kayseri.
This was a bus ride like none I have ever taken. I have spent almost 5 hours traveling on narrow passes at high elevation, watching a picturesque landscape unfold, to get to the Turkish city of Kayseri.
I am the only non-Turkish traveler on this double-decker bus, which seats over 70 passengers. No one on the bus speaks anything other than Turkish. I’m inconspicuous as long as I don’t have to talk to people. But when the bus conductor comes to ask for my drink preference (in Turkey bus conductors serve complementary snacks and drinks during the ride, just like how flight attendants used to take care of their customers on US domestic flights not so long ago), I am forced to speak in English. All of a sudden, people start looking at me curiously, and a few young men follow me with their eyes, marking me, perhaps, as a gay man of Iranian origin, in a way that is quite discomforting. They continue watching me until I get to my final destination.
This is not the easiest way to travel. But I intentionally chose to take a bus to this conservative town in central Turkey to experience what many gay refugees have to go through. They must regularly travel back and forth between Kayseri, where they live, and Ankara, the Turkish capital, where the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), and all refugee support facilities—from medical doctors to psychologists—are located.
Kayseri is home to a group of gay men and lesbians who have fled Iran and are now waiting in Turkey to be resettled in a Western country. The government of Turkey does not allow non-European refugees to stay in Turkey, and it is the responsibility of UNHCR to find a host country to take them in.
Currently there are over 18,000 refugees in Turkey, some of whom have been waiting for over 2 years to be resettled elsewhere. While in Turkey, the authorities insist that refugees can only stay in one of 30 designated small cities. These locations are assigned based on the asylum seeker’s nationality, gender, age, and reason for seeking asylum.
While waiting for their asylum cases to proceed, the refugees find it impossible to get a legal job. However, all refugees are legally required to pay a $200 residency fee every six months, which is waived only in extreme cases. Those who do not pay the fee may not leave Turkey for resettlement in another country.
Asylum seekers also find it extremely difficult to gain access to medical treatment, a right to which they are technically entitled. It takes endless paperwork to obtain permission to visit a hospital free of charge and they are legally required to acquire a financial waver prior to every procedure they need. Couple this with an almost inevitable language barrier and with the limited number of facilities accepting refugees, and the challenges multiply exponentially.
In a society where job opportunities are rare and financial resources are limited, refugees usually encounter public hostility. But for LGBT refugees, the picture is particularly frightening. Gay people, especially in more conservative areas, are perceived to be moral degenerates who will destroy social cohesion and promote prostitution. In this context, many view gay refugees as the “bottom of the barrel”—the public (and unfortunately sometimes the authorities) see them as parasites who not only suck blood from their host’s body, but who will fatally damage this body if left unchecked. For this reason, some “concerned citizens,” and occasionally local law enforcement agents, take it upon themselves to continuously intimidate gay refugees to make their lives as unpleasant as possible.
For LGBT refugees in Turkey, this is the daily struggle they must contend with: away from family and friends, with painful memories of persecution and harassment in their native country, they are now unwelcome strangers, living in extreme poverty, isolation and hopelessness, waiting for what feels like an eternity to find out if any country on the planet will give them a chance to live like human beings.
In the next few days, I will spend some time with these forgotten people, who have committed the ultimate sin: being gay.
Hossein Alizadeh
Click here to follow this story and read Hossein’s next blog from Kayseri.
The situation in Uganda is still hectic and tension is still on as ex-gay George “Georgina” Oundo continues to have media platforms to “out” LGBT people and organizations. Oundo has weekly programs on different television stations where he continues his smear campaign against LGBT groups and individuals. He is also naming specific organizations as the key funders of the LGBT movement in Uganda, including IGLHRC, Human Rights Watch, Hivos, Amnesty International, and the Astraea Foundation, among others.
The situation also has taken a new direction after a 19-year-old man accused Pastor Robert Kayanja of Rubaga Miracle Center of having sodomized him. This story has been running in the Uganda media for almost two weeks now. After police cleared the pastor of sodomy charges, the President of Uganda came out and blamed the Ugandan police for not handling the investigations very well. Anti-gay groups are also strongly supporting the Pastor’s accuser.
So far there are no new developments from Parliament about the proposed bill or amendment to the penal code. However, Christian fundamentalists continue to press the government to toughen the laws against homosexuality. SMUG has reported the birth of a new anti-gay Christian group whose name has not yet been made public.
SMUG is following up on the arrests of individuals on charges related to sexual orientation and/or gender identity, trying to determine the exact circumstances of the arrests and to provide legal and psycho-social assistance as appropriate:
Mbale Case 1:
A student was arrested in Mbale and eventually set free by police. By the time SMUG visited the police station in Mbale, he was not there and the police file with his case was missing. However SMUG learned that he was a Kenyan student and that he was taken back to Kenya by his parents. His current whereabouts is unknown.
Mukono Case:
Semondo Simon was arrested on charges of aggravated defilement. After visiting Mukono police post and Kawuuga prison, SMUG learnt that Simon was taken to Luzira maximum prison. SMUG is trying to get a letter of introduction from Uganda Prisons to go and interview Simon at Luzira prison.
Entebbe case:
Kalule was arrested on charges of carnal knowledge against the order of nature and was granted bail. After anti-gay groups demonstrated in Kampala, he was re-arrested on charges of aggravated defilement. Kalule appeared in court on May 18, 2009. The magistrate informed the court that she had no jurisdiction to grant Kalule bail since this must be granted by the High Court.
Mbale case 2:
Wasikira Fred, a transgender person also known as Namboozo Margaret, and Pande Brian were charged with carnal knowledge against the order of nature. On May 21, 2009, the two appeared before Chief Magistrate Margaret Tibulya, who granted bail to Wasikira Fred. Pande Brain was denied bail because his sureties were not substantial. Wasikira told SMUG that while in prison, he and Brian were subjected to cruel and inhuman degrading treatment that included being subjected to a forcible examination of their anuses for signs of penetration.
There are additional reports of arrests of men on charges related to sexual orientation and gender identity in Kampala, Kapchorwa and Busheyi districts. IGLHRC and SMUG are following these cases and will post updates when we have them.
Despite the global recession, the U.S. is promoting and aggressively selling a costly product overseas: homophobia. Uganda, one of America’s closest partners in Africa, is currently home to vicious and violent attacks on its citizens based solely on their sexual orientation and gender identity. The high cost in terms of individual privacy and freedom of expression is mounting daily. Regrettably, much of the inspiration and call for these attacks is coming directly from these shores.
In March 2009, three American extremists flew to Uganda’s capital city of Kampala to be featured speakers at a three-day training seminar focused on the “homosexual machinery wreaking havoc on individuals, families and society.” Attendees, including Ugandan teachers, pastors, and parents, were bombarded with provocative lectures, slide shows, and glossy materials that offered advice on how to fight the “gay agenda” and “cure” gay people from their sexual orientation.
The three Americans—Scott Lively, Don Schmierer, and Caleb Lee Brundidge—work for groups such as the Extreme Prophetic Ministry in Arizona, the International Healing Foundation in Maryland, and Exodus International in Florida, all of which declare “homosexuality” to be sinful and advocate converting gay people to heterosexuality—an approach that is widely repudiated and even condemned by professional organizations including the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association.
Lively, whose book, The Pink Swastika, makes the discredited claim that gays helped run the Nazi party, was quoted at the seminar as stating, “You have a gay movement in Uganda that is operating at a high level…this gay movement around the world has a handbook that they use and that is what the Ugandan gay movement is using now. You must be ready to stop this gay agenda.”
Emboldened by the Americans’ vilification of gay people, the seminar’s Ugandan host organization, Family Life Network, immediately instigated a witch-hunt. The group mobilized “ex-gays” to appear on television and radio and announce the names, addresses and places of employment of supposed gays and lesbians in Uganda. The effects have been immediate and devastating. At least five people have been arrested and charged with “having carnal knowledge against the order of nature.” Violent attacks of anyone suspected of being gay are occurring on the streets of Kampala with more frequency and intensity. Local tabloids, such as The Red Pepper have jumped into the fray by printing lists of men and women accused of being gay and lesbian.
Equally disturbing are calls for violence against gay men and lesbians from a coalition of the country’s religious leaders representing the Church of Uganda, the Catholic Church, and the Muslim Supreme Council. A recent public outing of “who is gay in Uganda” took place at the church of veteran Ugandan homophobe Martin Ssempa, who is a close friend of the head of America’s Saddleback Church, Rick Warren. In 2007, Ssempa organized a rally in which one of his guest speakers encouraged the murder of all gay and lesbian people by means of starvation. Now in 2009, Ssempa himself has publicly announced the names and places of employment of gay men.
This homophobic campaign is intent on getting new legislation passed in Uganda that will expand already harsh penalties against consensual same-sex relationships (the Ugandan Penal Code already carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. How much more severe can a penalty be?) Petitioners are calling for an expansion of that law to make it illegal for people of diverse sexual orientations to meet, to share ideas, and to engage in self-help programs to prevent HIV. These types of laws will open the door to all manner of blackmail, police harassment, employment discrimination and violence by state and non-state actors as well as attacks on freedom of expression, association, and privacy.
When asked what he would say to a gay person excluded by the church, Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he would apologize: “You are members of this family.” Every member of the human family deserves to be treated dignity and respect. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Ugandans should be able to live their lives in peace without the boot of the state on their necks or the fear of a homophobic lynch mob gathering outside their homes or workplaces. U.S. extremists are purposefully stoking the flames of homophobia in Uganda and inciting human rights abuses. In contrast, the U.S. government should stand up for justice and let Uganda know that any law that curtails basic human rights is wrong, that arresting people because of whom they are perceived to love is a crime, and that inducing violence and hatred is never a solution for resolving social conflict.
Cary Alan Johnson is Executive Director of The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
