generalspeaking

Punishing Gays

"Experience from other jurisdictions with similar draconian laws, such as Nigeria or Russia, indicates that their implementation is often followed by a surge in violence against individuals thought to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender."
"The Ugandan government has not indicated any plans to counter such violence or to investigate potential allegations of abuse."
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

Citing his annoyance at the interfering insistence of the West that he accede to their urgent calls not to sign the country's anti-gay legislation four years after its first introduction, Uganda's president signed the bill Monday. It will punish gay sex with the most severe penalties imaginable other than capital punishment. Ugandan police are certain to bring enthusiasm to implementation of the bill's punitive provisions.


Anti-gay sentiment is rife across the country. President Yoweri Museveni's signing of the bill could be read as much a pre-election ploy as a true conviction that gays present a threat to the honour and stability of the country. In so doing, he has given comfort to the huge numbers of Ugandans who look upon homosexuality and those that practise it as undeserving of life, in any event. People, in their ignorance simply need some group to hate.

The new Ugandan law will see first-time offenders sentenced to fourteen years in jail. Life imprisonment will be the rewarding maximum penalty for "aggravated homosexuality", represented by repeated gay sex practised between consenting adults -- and a nod to Russia's new repressive gay laws -- acts involving a minor, a disabled person or where one partner is infected with HIV.

The bill was signed at the presidential palace. Present were government officials, journalists, and Ugandan scientists. President Museveni had said he would hold off signing the bill, awaiting the result of Ugandan scientists' report on whether homosexuality represents a genetically endowed path, or an utterly disordered social pathology of choice. Scientists presented him with a report finding no proven genetic basis for homosexuality.

"They should rehabilitate themselves and society should assist them to do so" President Museveni generously declared, after signing the bill. Inevitably, the anti-gay law institutionalizes the dehumanization of gays, it makes bigotry acceptable, and societal aggression leading to violence against gays will result, leading the gay community to burrow deep underground in hopes of saving themselves.

Ugandan newspapers have been most helpful, publishing the photographs and names of known outspoken Ugandan gays.

Labels: Africa, Bigotry, Controversy, Homosexuality, Violence

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, February 26, 2014