COLLATERAL DAMAGE: ANTI GAY LOBBYING AND LEGISLATION IN AFRICA

Leaders of the U.S. Christian Right have cultivated African politicians and used the resulting broad access to push for antigay laws. They have created an insidious, inverse relationship between LGBT rights in the United States and in Africa, by depicting advances in the United States as evidence of a growing homosexual threat that must be stopped. Thus, LGBT Africans suffer a kind of “collateral damage” from the U.S. culture wars, as every victory in the

U.S. increases their suffering from bigotry and violence. African political and religious leaders often seem to be promoting homophobia for cynical political reasons.

Since the late 1990s, the Anglican archbishops of Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria, and presidents

Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Sam Nujoma of Namibia have all

used homosexuality to distract people from the issues facing their countries and churches by claiming that homosexuals are responsible for moral decay in Africa. They have linked homosexuality with child molestation, ritual child murder, corruption, opposition parties (in  Uganda), pornography, and other social ills.Yet these same leaders are silent about human rights abuses and undemocratic tendencies in their countries. The Yvonne Oyoo and Juliet Mukasa v. the Attorney General case in Uganda brought the issue of homosexuality into the spotlight.

LGBT activists Oyoo and Mukasa sued the government of Uganda in 2005 for violating their rights after the police raided their homes, assaulted them, and confiscated documents. When the  Uganda High Court ruled in their favor in 2008 and told the government to pay damages, many church people were disappointed.

Since then, Christian leaders have lobbied the parliament to institute penalties, including capital punishment, for homosexuality. On October 14, 2009 Ugandan parliament member David Bahati presented The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 to parliament, with the support of religious leaders. If passed, it will cause the unprecedented persecution of LGBT people. Activists could receive up to five years imprisonment, and anyone who fails to report an LGBT person to the authorities could receive up to a six months sentence. Homosexuals could receive life imprisonment or death. Canon Taiwo, for one, did not see anything wrong with killing gays and lesbians, saying,

If they are doing it, they are doing it privately. They dare not come to the open. They will be  shot. I can assure that they will be stoned to death. We don’t do it in Africa. 

It is only in the West that they are doing rubbish. U.S. religious conservatives of all stripes have

gone to Africa to lobby political leaders there to criminalize homosexuality. In March 2009 the U.S. antigay religious activists Scott Lively and Don Schmierer, together with African Stephen Langa, led a viciously homophobic “Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda” in Kampala, Uganda.62

The two Americans are viewed as bigoted hatemongers in the United States—Lively’s book The Pink Swastika, which he promoted at the seminar, claims that gays were responsible for the Nazi Holocaust. Nevertheless, they later were able to meet with Ugandan parliament members and other politicians, and received access to state media to promote their views.63 Other U.S. conservatives, including Evangelist Benny Hinn, Pastor Creflo Dollar, and Pastor Rick Warren have had audiences with African political leaders. Warren has been particularly influential. While cultivating an image of being a moderate in the United States, he and 48 other American  conservatives met with Rwandan cabinet ministers, governors, clergy, and entrepreneurs in 

July 2005.

 One dinner was attended by a third of the Rwandan parliament. In March and April 2008, he met with political leaders in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, the very countries where African bishops had been invited to boycott the 2008 Anglican Communion Lambeth Conference. During this visit, he declared that “Homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right….The Church of England is wrong on [homosexuality] and I support the Church of Uganda… on the boycott [of Lambeth]. In fact, according to Daniel Burke of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Warren… has built ties to conservative Anglican leaders, including prominent archbishops in Africa, over the last several years.” He has worked on projects with the Episcopal primates in Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya

 A pice from a reserch done by Rev.  Kapya Kaoma ( Globalizing Cultural wars) A must read.