Uganda Drops Death Penalty for Homosexuals

The Times reported this morning that the Ungandan lawmaker who originally introduced the now famous bill recommending the death penalty for homosexuals, has drop that particular portion. Instead, he favors imprisonment for homosexuals and people who advocate of behalf of them.

There’s no doubt that Sub-Saharan African countries have become a battleground for the debates of the United States, much as the DRC and Angola were de facto theaters of war for the US and the Soviet Union. However, as complicit as we are, the elephant in the room is that Uganda should spend more of its time figuring out how to lift its numerous poor out of poverty and how to protect the health of its children.

Worse yet, the sill hypocrisy is evident. Anti-Gay proponents claim that homosexuality in Africa will undermine African family values. As near as I can tell, poverty, HIV and massive gender inequality have done more than their fair share of damage to African family values. Like the US, conservative voices are remarkably silent on these issues.

Politicians love to pick on the defenseless, particularly when they are in small numbers and especially when they can’t vote. David Bahati, the bigot (and member of the fundamentalist US Christian group The Family) who introduced the bill, no doubt receives political concessions and maybe even financial contributions from abroad.

Even if the bill does pass, enforcement will be laughable. Police in any Sub-Saharan country are noticeably absent, particularly in the rural areas. The trouble is that, where police are not present, mob violence is. In Kenya, a petty thief at a rural market can expect to be horribly beaten and publicly burned to death without trial. The Ugandan Parliament merely fans the flames of this type of sickening violence by codifying hatred into law.