The prime ministers of Britain and Canada last week protested, in the strongest terms, Uganda’s plan to execute its sexually active LGBT and HIV-positive citizens — and to imprison their families, doctors, clergy if they fail to turn in patients and loved ones to the police.

The two nations’ top leaders implied that Uganda might lose foreign aid and membership in the Commonwealth if it proceeds.

Compare these condemnations to the official statement of the highest-ranking U.S. executive-branch official, Eric Goosby. He is the head of the U.S. State Department’s foreign-aid program for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, known as PEPFAR.

As Truth Wins Out pointed out on Friday, Goosby said:

My role is to be supportive and helpful to the patients who need these services. It is not to tell a country how to put forward their legislation. But I will engage them in conversation around my concern and knowledge of what this is going to do to that population, and our ability to stop the movement of the virus into the general population.

Update: Goosby’s statement is much softer and more generous to Uganda than a U.S. embassy officer’s prior statement:

“If adopted, a bill further criminalizing homosexuality would constitute a significant step backwards for the protection of human rights in Uganda,” the embassy’ 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.”

Americans must take urgent action to let the State Department know that it IS their job to prevent the misuse of taxpayers’ HIV/AIDS dollars to slaughter gay people, enrich evangelicals, and deny Africans access to condoms.

Please write letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding a hold on Uganda’s PEPFAR funding until strict human-rights, privacy, and free-speech controls can be imposed upon all PEPFAR aid. PEPFAR aid must not be given to sectarian religious interests, especially those with violent and inhumane intentions.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
(202) 647-4000

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.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
2470 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC 20515-0918
(202) 225-3931