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Dec 31

Ugandan kill-the-gays bill part 16: Rachel Maddow interviews David Bahati

written by Sherri Joubert

This article is part 16 in a multi-part series about the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill of 2009, better known as the Ugandan kill-the-gays bill. It is still alive and on the Ugandan Parliament agenda for debate at the end of 2010 or early in 2011.

This interview with the sponsor of this horrible legislation is enlightening on a very deep level. Being able to discuss Mr. Bahati’s bill directly with him is an extremely rare opportunity, and provides a clear and frightening picture of what he is trying to accomplish in Uganda with the gay population there.

The first 15 articles can be accessed at the following links:

American history: foundational myths about being gay:

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“Gays can’t reproduce so they must recruit”. What a crock. Gays and lesbians are born that way, usually as the product of straight parents. We don’t exactly know why that is, but there a few strongly-supported theories being studied that may explain what we see in nature.

Ten percent (on average) of all mammalian species are homosexual, not just humans, therefore, homosexuality exists consistently in nature and is a normal variant within populations.

Gays and lesbians can reproduce and/or parent adopted children. Egg and sperm donors and surrogate mothers allow couples of both genders to have children biologically related to one or both partners. Children of gay and lesbian parents (biological or adopted) generally turn out straight, not always, but most of the time.

David Bahati Interview (part 1):

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David Bahati says, “I don’t hate gays, I love them”. But he’ll kill every one of them to protect the Ugandan children. According to Mr. Bahati, telling children or teens that a man sleeping with a man is okay is tantamount to recruiting kids into being gay.

He also believes that gays do not deserve human rights protections.

David Bahati Interview (part 2):

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Mr. Bahati doesn’t want to stop at keeping gays away from children. He wants all gay Ugandans punished, no matter where they are in the world. He wants gay Ugandans extradited back to Uganda to stand trial for homosexual behavior whenever it occurs outside of Uganda.

God’s Law and Homosexuality

In the Bible, we first encounter homosexual gang rape in Genesis 18-19 in the story of Lot and the city of Sodom. Gay sex is listed as a sin in Hebrew law (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13), it is called an abomination, and the penalty is death. It doesn’t say anything about lesbian sex.

In Deuteronomy 22:5, cross-dressing is forbidden. A woman may not put on a man’s clothing, and a man may not put on a woman’s clothing. All of we women who wear pants are definitely in violation of this law.

These laws were specifically designed by God to prohibit the Children of Israel from imitating a variety of acts practiced by other tribes and nations surrounding the Israelites. (See Deuteronomy 18:9).

There is the whole story of David and Jonathan possibly being bisexual lovers. David had many wives. But the story of the relationship between these two men is quite suspicious (See 1 Sam. 20:17), and David got away with a lot of bad stuff and still ended up with a sterling reputation. He could have gotten away with a homosexual relationship, too.

Mr. Bahati gives his own opinion of God’s law as well as saying Jesus preached the same prohibitions against homosexuality. Jesus never preached anything concerning homosexuality specifically, but his Apostle, Paul, did. On the subject of adultery, Jesus stopped the stoning of a woman for adultery, saying “he who is without sin, cast the first stone”. Jesus saved the woman’s life by reminding everyone that no one is without sin, and mercy and forgiveness should be shown over strident application of Hebrew law. Jesus preached love, mercy and forgiveness, and I do not believe he would have considered today’s gay or lesbian couples to be abominations.

People of that time were ignorant of a homosexual nature with which a person is born, a nature involving romantic love of another person of the same sex. Their experience was limited to the sexual religious practices of the Canaanites and other local tribes that would have been pretty appealing to the Israelites. (Imagine orgies instead of church).

Mr. Bahati is correct that the Bible has prohibitions against homosexual sex, but the laws were not meant literally for a modern world. They were meant to keep the Israelites from participating in the practices of worshiping the gods of the other nations surrounding them (including idol worship, cultic prostitution, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, and infant sacrifice).

If one wants to talk about rampant sins, adultery is a very big problem in African cultures as well as most of the rest of the world. We no longer punish adulterers with stoning or scarlet letters or banishment. That is seen as ridiculous. Since homosexuality and adultery are discussed in the Bible in the same passages on laws about sex, homosexuality laws in the Bible should also be seen today in the same light as adultery.

To date, Mr. Bahati has sent nothing to The Rachel Maddow Show showing any facts supporting his allegation that gays recruit children into homosexuality.

David Bahati Interview (part 3):

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Mr. Bahati does not understand that there is such a thing as international law and punishment for human rights atrocities, and imprisoning and executing gays for being gay would certainly be an atrocity.

Jeff Sharlet Reports

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Conservative American supporters inside The Family and out, are exporting the fight against homosexuality to Uganda and David Bahati. When/if he wins the war there he will bring the lessons of the victory back to America to restart the conservative war against homosexuality in America and try again to win it.

Fortunately, I believe, and so do many others, that gays and lesbians will have full and equal civil rights as all other Americans by the time Uganda gets done with their bill.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has already been repealed. Joe Biden sees a path clearing for legalizing same-sex marriage all over the country, and even President Obama is beginning to see same-sex marriage as the institution that will be instated rather than civil unions.

Over the past 21 months of working closely with gays and lesbians on DADT, it seems President Obama has come to see their lives and relationships as much more similar to straight relationships than they are different from them. I say bravo for the President.

You can watch the full, unedited interview here on MaddowBlog.

Technorati Tags: C Street, David Bahati, Jeff Sharlet, kill-the-gays bill, Rachel Maddow, The Family, The Fellowship, Uganda

\\ tags: C Street, David Bahati, Jeff Sharlet, kill-the-gays bill, Rachel Maddow, The Family, The Fellowship, Uganda

Apr 13

Ugandan kill-the-gays bill part 14: Obama speaks of Ugandan bill at U.S. Family National Prayer Breakfast

Human Rights 2 Comments »

written by Sherri Joubert

This article is part 14 in a multi-part series about the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill of 2009, better known as the Ugandan kill-the-gays bill. The Rachel Maddow Show named this series Uganda Be Kidding Me, and they won a GLAAD award this year for it. The first 13 articles can be accessed at the following links:

Thu Feb 4, 2010
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at the Family’s U.S. National Prayer Breakfast. The President spoke about Uganda and gay marriage amongst other topics. Sec. Clinton openly denounced the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009.

Bishop Eugene Robinson held an alternative American Prayer Hour. A gay Ugandan addresses the ecumenical American Prayer Hour with a bag over his head because of fear he might be extradited back to Uganda for trial.

Posted by Laura Conaway on Feb. 4, 2010
MaddowBlog.msnbc.com

MaddowBlog writer Laura Conaway has some interesting analysis of some of the President’s remarks:

Whew. Let’s roll forward just a bit, with this from President Obama’s as-prepared remarks:

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.

Wait, did you catch that? The president of the United States just said “gay marriage” — like it was a thing. And he suggested, maybe, that this thing called “gay marriage” might be something “we disagree on.” Obama has been on the record as opposing gay marriage since he got famous, though he seems to have supported it back when no one much knew who he was.

And what’s he saying now, to an audience that leans toward being socially conservative and fundamentalist Christian? That crowd has opposed marriage equality, as has Obama. So what disagreement is Obama talking about?

Reverse Obama’s formulation, and you get: We can all agree the Uganda kill-the-gays bill is wrong, even if we disagree about gay marriage.

That disagreement could be on Obama’s move to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act — which would grant full equality at the federal level to married gay couples in states like Massachusetts, and is thus inherently pro-equality. Or the disagreement could be about whether same-sex couples should be allowed to have civil unions. In which case, President Obama just substituted the words “gay marriage” for the civil unions he has been willing to favor since running for president.

It may be that Obama really does oppose gay civil marriage and support civil unions, in each case because of his Christian beliefs. Certainly, he has argued from that position in recent years. But heard another way, his remarks at the Prayer Breakfast suggest that he finds himself on one side of the question of marriage equality, and the social conservatives he’s addressing on the other. If you’re for marriage equality, that’s worth something. — by Laura Conaway

I can’t say it any better than that. Maybe the president does consider gay marriage a thing, that it is something worth debating, and maybe he’s less against it than he’s professed since the campaign. I hope he is just waiting to repeal DOMA until his second term and help grant equal marriage rights to same-sex couples then. Hey, I can dream, right?

Part 15 can be found at this link.

Technorati Tags: 2010, American Prayer Hour, Bishop Eugene Robinson, Rachel Maddow, The Family, The Rachel Maddow Show, U.S. National Prayer Breakfast