Americans try to help kill gay Ugandans

If you thought that the discrimination GLBTQ people face in America is bad—and it is—it’s nothing compared to what the religious right is doing in Africa. And that would be the religious right from the good ol’ USA.

Uganda is considering a law that would prescribe life imprisonment for gay people, the death sentence for HIV-positive gay people, and prison sentences for people who know about or support gay people instead of turning them in.

And a boatload of U.S. religious figures are working behind the scenes to make it happen. Because, hey, if they can’t lock up all the gay people in America, they can do it in Uganda!

Here’s the list of the usual suspects:

Scott Lively: He’s the former communications director of the anti-gay group the Oregon Citizens Alliance and the author of a lovely little book of Holocaust revisionism called The Pink Swastika that blames the Holocaust on gay people. And he’s heavily involved with a so-called evangelical group called the Watchmen on the Walls, which is a recognized hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and has a lot of connections to Sacramento. Lively once publicly blamed Satender Singh’s death on the gays as he addressed a group of Russian evangelicals.

Rick Warren: The pastor of the massive Saddleback Church has worked closely with a number of the Ugandan ministers who are behind the proposed law. And Warren refused to condemn the law, telling Newsweek that “it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.” He also told Meet the Press that he never takes sides. Of course, he didn’t have a problem taking sides when he told his congregation to support Proposition 8 in California.

The Family: For the full scoop on this neoconservative evangelical group in Washington, D.C., that includes a number of high-ranking U.S. congressmen among their ranks, you need to read Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. The Family thinks that certain Christian men have not only a duty but a right to run the world. Don’t worry, it’s for the best. And they’ve been courting leadership in Africa and sending money for years—so it’s no surprise that Sharlet was able to track their connection to the Uganda law.

Just imagine what these yahoos will do if they think they can get away with it in the United States. Hey, don’t think because it’s Uganda, it has nothing to do with us. It’s not just Ugandan lives at stake.

Compiled from Kel’s Hot Flash.