{UAH} Report: Uganda's President Will Sign the 'Jail the Gays' Bill Into Law

Report: Uganda's President Will Sign the 'Jail the Gays' Bill Into Law

ABBY OHLHEISER

 

Kenyan gays and lesbians and others supporting their cause wear masks to preserve their anonymity and one holds out a wrapped condom, as they stage a rare protest, against Uganda's increasingly tough stance against homosexuality and in solidarity with their counterparts there, outside the Uganda High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya Monday, Feb. 10, 2014.  (AP)

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni reportedly announced his intention to sign his country's brutal new anti-gay bill into law on Friday. Once that happens, any individual convicted of "aggravated homosexuality" in the country could go to prison for life. Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda. The new laws are much more aggressive. 

Here's the announcement from government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo: 

He added that the president was swayed by 14 medical "experts," who "presented a report that homosexuality is not genetic but a social behaviour." He added that the MPs "welcomed the development as a measure to protect Ugandans from social deviants." Earlier, as J. Lester Feder reported at Buzzfeed, Museveni had indicated that he would support the bill if he "got confirmation from scientists that this condition is not genetic.”

The announcement is a reversal from an earlier statement by the President, which seemed to strongly suggest that he would not sign the bill into law — but not because he supported the rights of LGBT individuals. His logic at that time was that homosexuality was a biological "abnormality." Museveni's seeming reluctance to sign the bill prompted a worldwide day of protest, with activists urging him to leave it unsigned. Earlier on Friday, Museveni  backed a proposal to deny bail to anyone arrested under the country's anti-sodomy laws, which can now be perceived as an indication that he was going to sign the "jail the gays" bill after all. 

The "jail the gays" bill is a slightly less awful version of a bill that's been percolating in Uganda's parliament for years. Originally, the bill sponsored by Member of Parliament David Bahati allowed for the death penalty in  "aggravated homosexuality" cases, but Bahati has said that the version that will become law has a maximum punishment of "life imprisonment" instead. The bill was in part inspired by the advocacy of several anti-gay fundamentalists from the U.S., as we explained when the bill passed Parliament in December. Among other things, American activists like Scott Lively have promoted the (obviously false) theory that there is a western "gay agenda" that is trying to recruit Ugandans into homosexuality. 

In addition having their existence criminalized, LGBT individuals in the country have been subject to beatings, harassment, and "corrective rape"  over the years, all in the name of protecting Ugandans from "abnormal" people. Ugandan LGBT activistDavid Kato was murdered in 2011, a year after the Ugandan news magazine Rolling Stone put his photo on their cover, near the words "Hang Them." 

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower