Ugandan LGBT Rights Activist Murdered After Being Targeted by Tabloid

Ugandan LGBT Rights Activist David Kato

Sad news comes out of the African nation of Uganda, where the infamous "Kill the Gays" bill nearly became law last year and a tabloid began publishing the names of suspected gays and lesbians, turning neighbor against neighbor. Human rights activist David Kato has been beaten to death in his home because the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone published his name and address on a list of supposed gays and lesbians.

The following statement comes via press release from LGBT Rights activist Frank Mugisha of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG):

Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and the entire Ugandan Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Community stands together to condemn the killing of David Kato and call for the Ugandan Government, Civil Society, and Local Communities to protect sexual minorities across Uganda.

David was brutally beaten to death in his home today, 26 January 2011, around 2pm. Across the entire country, straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex Ugandans mourn the loss of David, a dear friend, colleague, teacher, family member, and human rights defender.

David has been receiving death threats since his face was put on the front page of Rolling Stone Magazine, which called for his death and the death of all homosexuals. David’s death comes directly after the Supreme Court of Uganda ruled that people must stop inciting violence against homosexuals and must respect the right to privacy and human dignity.

Sexual Minorities Uganda and the Ugandan Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex Community call on the Police and the Government of Uganda to seriously investigate the circumstances surrounding David’s death. We also call on religious leaders, political leaders and media houses to stop demonizing sexual minorities in Uganda since doing so creates a climate of violence against gay persons. Val Kalende, the Chair of the Board at Freedom and Roam Uganda stated that “David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S Evangelicals in 2009. The Ugandan Government and the so-called U.S Evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood!”

As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently declared, “I understand that sexual orientation and gender identity raise sensitive cultural issues. But cultural practices cannot justify any violation of human rights. . . . When our fellow humans are persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, we must speak out. . . . States bear the primary responsibility to protect human rights advocates. I call on all States to ensure the freedom of expression and the freedom of assembly that make their work possible. When the lives of human rights advocates are endangered, we are all less secure. When the voices of human rights advocates are silenced, justice itself is drowned out.”

David’s life was cut short in a brutal manner. David will be deeply missed by his family and friends, his students, and Human Rights organizations throughout Uganda and around the world. Speaking about what the death of David means in the struggle for equality, Frank Mugisha, the Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda said, “No form of intimidation will stop our cause. The death of David will only be honored when the struggle for justice and equality is won. David is gone and many of us will follow, but the struggle will be won. David wanted to see a Uganda where all people will be treated equally despite their sexual orientation.”

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• Prominent Ugandan gay activist brutally slain (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
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• Tragedy as Gay Activist David Kato Murdered in Kampala, Uganda - Impact on Ugandan Lesbian Seeking UK Asylum (lezgetreal.com)
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Obama, Clinton Condemn Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill at National Prayer Breakfast (video)

Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday and used the opportunity to condemn Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill.

This is big for two reasons. First, the National Prayer Breakfast is sponsored by the super secret group "The Family", whose membership reads like a who's who of Capital Hill's extreme right wing. This is the group largely responsible for inspiring the "Kill the Gays" bill in the first place, by exporting their extremist anti-gay rhetoric to third world countries like Uganda, where it has caught on like wildfire.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, this issue has forced the government of the United States for the first time ever to take a public stand against human rights violations targeting gays and lesbians. Some of us are old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan thought of us as disposable, brushing off the AIDS epidemic because it was only infecting "queers and junkies."

Hillary, who apparently had custody of the testicles yesterday, went first, speaking out against the use of religion "to justify horrific violence" and as a justification for the suppression of women and "to discriminate, even advocating the execution of gays and lesbians."

You can see the contempt in her eyes for the hypocrisy in the room. You gotta love Hillary, she's not afraid to step on toes.

The president's words were more measured and diplomatic, saying, "We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are, whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed, most recently in Uganda."

This clip from last night's Rachel Maddow's "Uganda Be Kidding Me" segment features parts of these speeches. Rachel had openly gay Episcopal Bishop Eugene Robinson on her show. Robinson's elevation to the position of bishop was the catalyst of a rift in the Episcopal/Anglican Communion over the role of gays and lesbians in the church and the issue of same-sex marriage.

As a response to the National Prayer Breakfast, Bishop Robinson and a group of LGBT activists took part in the "American Prayer Hour".

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House Resolution Condemns Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill

Ugandan Anti-Gay Legislation Threatens Human Rights, Reverses Gains in HIV/AIDS Fight, Berman Says.

Washington, D.C. – Howard L. Berman (D-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today introduced a bipartisan congressional resolution condemning anti-gay legislation now making its way through the parliament in Uganda.

“The proposed Ugandan bill not only threatens human rights, it also reverses so many of the gains that Uganda has made in the fight against HIV/AIDS.  This issue has united leaders of different political and religious views in Uganda and worldwide in one common belief in the rights of all human beings regardless of sexual orientation.”

More than three dozen members of Congress joined Berman in introducing the resolution (H. Res. 1064), including Committee Ranking Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA); Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Chair Donald Payne (D-NJ); Congressional Black Caucus Chair Barbara Lee (D-CA); and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Co-Chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus. 

Ugandan Pres. Museveni Pull Supports of Anti-gay Bill (video)

Bowing to international pressure, Ugandan president Museveni has begun to distance himself from the proposed "Kill the Gays" bill currently under consideration in the African nation. The following video shows Museveni addressing members of parliament. Museveni talks about conversations with world leaders, including British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton all wanting to discuss the same issue, "the gays".

Museveni also mentions the rally in New York of 300,000 protesting the anti-gay legislation introduced by member of parliament David Bahati. It's difficult to fully understand what the Ugandan leader is saying through his thick accent, but I think the gist of it is, he doesn't want to piss off 300,000 gays.

With hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid at risk, Museveni is backing away from the bill and says he will be speaking with Bahati to encourage him to do the same.

I feel good about being an American today knowing that my government stood up for the rights of LGBT people. Let's hope it begins to do the same here at home.

This Queer Little Planet: "The Family" Condemns Uganda's "Kill the Gays Bill" (video)

Rachel Maddow continues to be the only major news reporter to cover the Uganda story. After weeks of exposing the link between the secretive Capital Hill group The Family, Maddow reports that the leader of the ultra conservative organization, Bob Hunter, has officially poked his head out of the C Street house long enough to condemn the "Kill the Gays" bill.

I am amazed at how devious and cowardly these ultra-conservative Washington types are. As long as they can stay under the radar, they sow the seeds of genocide in under-developed nations with impunity, their "Christian love" safely tucked out of sight. But as soon as they're exposed, they scurry away like cockroaches, disavowing the fruits of their own labor and condemning the very hatred they actively promote.

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Hillary Speaks Out Against Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill

Reports from Uganda have been conflicting in the last few days. It looked as though Uganda's leaders were going to strip the death penalty from it's anti-gay legislation. Over the weekend it came to light that the African nation, in a show of defiance against international pressure, Ugandan legislator, David Bahati, who introduced the genocidal bill, has no intention of changing the proposed legislation, despite calls from world leaders, including the Vatican and evangelical leaders, to respect the basic human rights of homosexuals.
Adding her voice to the growing chorus is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In a speech at Georgetown University, Clinton said:

"Calling for accountability doesn’t start or stop at naming offenders. Our goal is to encourage—even demand—that governments must also take responsibility by putting human rights into law and embedding them in government institutions; by building strong, independent courts and competent and disciplined police and law enforcement. And once rights are established, governments should be expected to resist the temptation to restrict freedom of expression when criticism arises, and be vigilant in preventing law from becoming an instrument of oppression, as bills like the one under consideration in Uganda to criminalize homosexuality would do."

The text of the full speech is available at Politico.com.

The White House Condemns Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill (Finally!)

Following are some if the latest developments concerning the Uganda "Kill the Gays" bill.

After a week in which the LGBT blogosphere was lit up with the story of Uganda's pending "Kill the Gays" bill and non-stop coverage of the story from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (the only mainstream coverage on the issue) and a plea from snake-oil salesman Pastor Rick Warren for his latest fan base to soften the bill, the White House has issued a statement condemning the legislation.

In response to an inquiry from The Advocate for a comment on the subject, the White House responded saying, “The President strongly opposes efforts, such as the draft law pending in Uganda, that would criminalize homosexuality and move against the tide of history.”

Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin reports that John Nagenda, senior adviser to Uganda's president Museveni wrote a measured Op Ed in the government-owned newspaper, New Vision, saying,

"And that is where same-sex lovers’ haters will do their nut! The recent month I was away a parliamentarian introduced a Bill of hugely draconian measure, including heavy penalties on those who wouldn’t report same-sex lovers they knew about! In the US there was a man whose name, McCarthy, is now a synonym (as McCarthyism) for cruel witch-hunting. For him Communism was the hot issue, although he would doubtless have looked at same-sex love as a product of that political system."

"In the Inquisition period, evil prelates tortured people who deviated from current beliefs, including by saying the world was not flat but round! Now we all laugh about these odd characters. Lower down the scale, people were tortured for being left-handed (indeed called sinister for it) or being very short, or being blind: in short for not being normal. I believe, and I am raising the bar, that we must laugh at this MP and others like him: laugh and stay sane. What crime have same-sex lovers committed, per se, by being who they are? Would those who believe God made mankind exclude them, and on what grounds?"

 The UK paper, The Guardian reports this morning on the homophobic trend among African nations.

Uganda is likely to pass a law within months that will make homosexuality a capital offence, joining 37 other countries in the continent where American evangelical Christian groups are increasingly spreading bigotry.

LezGetReal reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury has finally spoken out on the issue as well. The archbishop was criticized this week by progressive Episcopalians who accused the leader of the Anglican Church of  "failing to exercise moral leadership to protect gays and lesbians in Uganda" and instead being overly focused on the controversial election of the church's second openly gay bishop, Rev. Mary Glasspool by the diocese or Los Angeles.

Truth Wins Out Kisses Homophobe Rick Warren's Ass

Editor's note: when I first wrote this piece Thursday night, the quote below from the press release was included. At some point in the editing process it was deleted and the article was posted without it. I discovered the mistake and have re-added the quote for context.

I got an e-mail this afternoon from Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out (TWO) containing a press release entitled, "TWO Praises Pastor Rick Warren for Speaking Out Against Anti-gay Uganda Bill".

In the press release reads: "We applaud Rick Warren for speaking out with force and clarity on a bill that would lead to the persecution and prosecution of gay and lesbian Ugandans," said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. "Today, Warren showed true moral courage and stood for what is right and just. We urge other leading pastors and world leaders to stand up and condemn Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill."

WTF!? How insane is it to praise someone for speaking out against a proposed policy of genocide that was a direct result of his own words and actions in the first place? Moral courage?

Let's take look at Pastor Rick's moral courage in this clip from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show on Thursday night.

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Warren has said that he does not interfere in the politics of other nations, yet he has been actively spreading his homophobic ministry in Uganda and has become so highly regarded and respected there that they were motivated to enact a genocidal policy that was in no small part motivated by Warren's work.

Pastor Rick is anything but praise worthy. He plays down his influence in Uganda, but one word from him and the proposed "Kill the Gays" legislation was quickly changed to "Convert the Gays". That's right, the Ugandan penal system will not be a Nazi death camp clone. If the reports coming out are true, it will more closely resemble a system straight out of George Orwell's "1984", where citizens convicted of the crime of nonconformity were sent off to re-eduction centers in order to make them more socially acceptable.

Nothing in Uganda's violent, bloody history indicates that its government is sophisticated enough or has the know-how to pull something like this off without some outside help.

Enter ex-gay guru Richard Cohen, author of "Coming Out Straight". Cohen's multimedia reparative therapy program is highly respected in Uganda, even though the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, and countless other groups of medical professionals have repeatedly stated that sexual orientation cannot be changed and Cohen has no medical credentials whatsoever.

Pastor Rick's intervention in a potential LGBT holocaust is not so much a humanitarian act of Christian love, as it is a marketing strategy. He is currently the most influential preacher in the US. His entire snake oil empire would be lost if his words became the inspiration for genocide. He's doing what he always does when his past comes back to bite him in the ass, damage control.

For years we have been saying that hate speech can have deadly consequences. The situation in Uganda is proof of exactly that. You don't have to say the words "kill the gays" to people who are ready, willing and able to do it anyway. All you have to do is demonize them to the gullible and uneducated masses using your Bible-based bigotry and let them take it from there.

In a way, the Uganda story is actually a sign of LGBT progress. The radical Evangelical Christians understand that the tide is turning in our favor in the US and the rest of the western world, so they're focusing their efforts on under-developed, under-educated, third-world countries.

Wayne Besen and TWO have done our community a lot good over the years by exposing the myths behind the ex-gay movement, but this time they are way off base. Rick Warren is nothing more than a stereotypical, bible-thumping, venom-spewing, two-faced bigot. The only purpose driving his life is self promotion. The sparing of innocent lives is purely coincidental.

Wayne, you can do better than this.

This Queer Little Planet: Uganda to Drop Life Sentance, Death Penalty for Gays?

I've been following the events in Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill a lot lately and reporting what I find out here, so this week's "This Queer Little Planet" post is not as unique a story as I usually like, but WTF.

That being said, Bloomberg.com is reporting a major development in the Uganda story. Bloomberg's Fred Ojambo reports that Ugandan lawmaker's have decided to drop the death penalty/life in prison part of the their anti-gay legislation, due in large part to international pressure and the urging of evangelicals (who started all this) to take a kinder, gentler approach to homophobia.

(From Bloomberg.com) Uganda will drop the death penalty and life imprisonment for gays in a refined version of an anti- gay bill expected to be ready for presentation to Parliament in two weeks, James Nsaba Buturo, the minister of ethics and integrity, said.

The draft bill, which is under consideration by a parliamentary committee, will drop the two punishments to attract the support of religious leaders who are opposed to these penalties, Buturo said today in a phone interview from the capital, Kampala.

 Details are still sketchy, but reports are that the revised bill will include conversion therapy to “attract errant people to acceptable sexual orientation,” said Buturo.

It is a sad state of affairs when a government's compassion for its people is measured by its willingness to not kill them. Can't you feel the love?