EXPORTING HOMOPHOBIA American far-right conservative churches establish influence on anti-gay policy in Africa BY JODY MAY-CHANG
eter Yiga is a Ugandan born-again Christian with a degree in computer engineering. He is the father of a young child and is also a known gay activist in a country that is on a witch hunt. In February, Yiga attended a human rights conference in the capital city of Kampala. “I saw a member of parliament who attended, talking very bitter and vowing to kill everyone—including their sons and daughters—if they were proved homosexuals,” he told BW by Internet video conference from Uganda. Yiga described how he and his friends are psychologically tortured and forced to endure daily warnings and promises of being hunted down and killed. “The church and other leaders have done a lot to brainwash people, and all the community now is readily spitting fire against homosexuality. They are planning to kill or panga [machete] us. We have been running from house to house because when a neighborhood learns about your orientation, then you should expect mob justice anytime,” he said. Although homosexuality has been illegal in Uganda since the colonial era, there has been an unprecedented escalation of hatred fueled by Uganda’s pending Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. If passed in its present form, the wide-ranging legislation calls for the death penalty for gays and lesbians who engage in sex and are HIV positive, have committed the offense of
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homosexuality more than once, have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol during a sexual encounter or one partner has a disability. For other, less “aggravated” offenses, they face life in prison. The bill also affects heterosexuals. Nongovernmental organizations including human rights, advocacy or aid organizations will be prosecuted if any material or advocacy support is provided to or on behalf of LGBT people. This includes family members, friends, medical professionals and clergy. There will be nowhere to run for Yiga or his friends. While the issues facing Yiga and other homosexuals in Uganda seem a world away, the situation has direct ties to the United States through a combination of social pressures and monetary funding from a select group of powerful conservative Christian groups. In the midst of the controversy, some have gone so far as to say the American groups had a direct hand in drafting the Ugandan legislation and lent the anti-gay movement a mainstream appearance. Big names like Kenneth Starr, former White House investigator and president of Baylor University; Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church; Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy; and Stephen Noll of the American Anglican Council and vice chancellor of Ugandan Christian University, have all played a role on the African stage. Victor Mukasa, a Ugandan in selfimposed exile in South Africa working with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told BW there were struggles for LGBT people in Uganda before, but it was not until American evangelicals came to Uganda that things took a turn for the worse.
SEMINAR STOKES THE FIRES America’s influence in African politics goes back centuries, but this most recent anti-homosexual movement can be traced, in part, to a three-day seminar in Kampala in March 2009
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