From UK Gay News
The European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, today adopted a resolution strongly condemning the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009 , a Private Members Bill, said to have the support of the Government, tabled by David Bahati MP in the Ugandan Parliament.
Joining widespread international outcry from the British, French, Canadian and Swedish governments as well as the White House, the European Parliament officially calls on Ugandan authorities “not to approve the bill and to review their laws to decriminalize homosexuality”.
Michael Cashman MEP, co-president of the European Parliament’ all-party “Intergroup’ on LGBT Rights, praised the move.
“The European Parliament is committed to promoting democracy and the human rights of all citizens in the countries it works with,” he said. “Uganda is about to dishonour its moral leadership and its people by going against universally-agreed human rights.
In related news, the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned the proposed Ugandan anti Homosexuality Bill today.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s press secretary has told LGCM that Archbishop Rowan Williams is “very clear that the private Member’s Bill being discussed in Uganda as drafted is entirely unacceptable from a pastoral, moral and legal point of view.”
Bulletin: Church of Scotland speaks out:
Statement from the Church of Scotland on the proposals before the Ugandan Parliament on Homosexuality
Church of Scotland has had a long record of standing against injustice and inequality especially when it is perpetrated institutionally. The Church of Scotland is therefore appalled at the draconian measures proposed by the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
In 2007 The Church of Scotland’s General Assembly received a report which stated that “Theological approaches to homosexuality which present gay or lesbian people as unlovable or less loved by God than any other person are unacceptable”. To discriminate on issues of sexuality is unacceptable in the eyes of God and of the law.
Rev Ian Galloway, convenor of the Church of Scotland’s Church and Society Committee said “This draft legislation is without question an infringement of human rights. It is morally repugnant. The Church of Scotland wants therefore to strongly add it’s voice to the many calling for the immediate withdrawal of this discriminatory Bill.”
The bill is due for further discussion in the Ugandan Parliament in January 2010.
