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Truth Wins Out today urged Congress to deny financial aid to Uganda if the country passes a draconian bill that would trample the fundamental rights of the nation’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender population. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 threatens sexual minorities with cruel and usual punishment for simply existing.

On Friday, four members of Congress wrote a powerful letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to express alarm over the proposed law.

“This egregious bill represents one of the most extreme anti-equality measures ever proposed in any country and would create a legal pretext for depriving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Ugandans of their liberty, and even their lives,” said the bipartisan letter, signed by Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc., Pictured), Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). “Particularly given the United States’ substantial contribution to Uganda through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), we believe swift action is necessary to ensure Ugandan leaders understand this bill is wholly unacceptable and antithetical to democratic values.”

Please THANK Rep. Tammy Baldwin for her support and urge her office to continue fighting against The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 by e-mailing Amber Shipley

Amber.Shipley@mail.house.gov

Please THANK Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for her support via phone call or letter and urge her to continue using her position in the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs to hold Uganda accountable.

2470 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC 20515-0918
Telephone: 202-225-3931

Please contact the Ugandan Embassy and express your disapproval of the anti-gay bill:

His Excellency Professor Perezi K. Kamunanwire
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Tel: (202) 726 4758
pkamunanwire@ugandaembassyus.org

BACKGROUND: Last week, the US pledged to give Uganda $246 million in aid. Truth Wins Out wrote members of the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health and the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs today urging a reconsideration of aid to Uganda if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 is passed.

The United States embassy in Uganda spoke out last week against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, calling it a major setback in the promotion of human rights.

“If adopted, a bill further criminalizing homosexuality would constitute a significant step backwards for the protection of human rights in Uganda,” the embassy’s public affairs officer Joann Lockard said in an email. “We urge states to take all necessary measures to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests, or detention.”

“We commend the Obama administration for standing up to injustice and tyranny against sexual minorities in Uganda,” said TWO’s Besen. “We hope that leaders in Uganda understand that their efforts to persecute GLBT people is a moral affront to core American values.”

Unfortunately, The American Free Press (AFP) reported last week, Ugandan Ethics Minister James Nsaba Buturo said the country would not relent, even as international protests mounted.

“They have come to me in great numbers and we are discussing it diplomatically but we are also telling them to mind their own business. They have no mandate whatsoever to come and say: ‘Your values are wrong, mine are right’,” he said. “We are really getting tired of this phrase human rights. It is being abused. Anything goes, and if you are challenged? ‘Oh, it’s my right’. Anal sex? Human rights. Robbery? Human rights. All sort of nonsense? Human rights,” Buturo said.

Asked about donor nations and human rights campaigners opposed to the bill, Buturo was again defiant, according to AFP.

“We have told those sources we are not going to compromise our integrity. And they are appalled. They cannot believe that Uganda says, on certain issues we are not going to sell our soul,” he said.

Truth Wins Out called Buturo’s attack on international concern disingenuous and untruthful.

“Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has allowed American evangelical groups to use his nation as a laboratory for socially conservative policies,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “So, it is outrageous and dishonest for Ugandan leaders to suddenly protest human rights advocates as meddling outsiders.”

According to Public Research Associates, Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, is friends with Archbishop Henry Orombi and Pastor Martin Sempa, who are pushing for passage of this bill. While in Uganda in March 2008, Warren said that that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and not a human right.

The Fellowship, (aka The Family) one of America’s most powerful and secretive fundamentalist organization’s, converted Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni to its anti-gay brand of Christianity, which is the “intellectual” impetus behind the anti-gay crackdown. The clandestine organization’s leader, Doug Coe, calls Museveni The Fellowship’s “key man” in Africa, according to Jeff Sharlet, author of “The Family.”

Last Spring, a U.S. delegation of anti-gay fundamentalists attended a conference in Kampala that pledged to “wipe out” homosexuality. Americans who were present include Don Schmierer, an Exodus International Board member, holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, and the International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge.

“For the past decade, evangelical leaders in America have claimed that they love gay people,” said Besen. “It is time they back up their syrupy words with action. If they fail to act, they will be held responsible for their spread of ignorance and intolerance that helped light the fuse for this oppressive law.”

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that counters anti-gay propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit TruthWinsOut.org.