As a gay Ugandan, Frank Mugisha has endured insults from strangers, hate messages on his phone, police harassment and being outed in a tabloid as one of the country's "top homos". That may soon seem like the good old days.
Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex, under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda's parliament. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a "person of authority" over the other partner, or if the "victim" is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty.
Members of the public are obliged to report any homosexual activity to police with 24 hours or risk up to three years in jail – a scenario that human rights campaigners say will result in a witchhunt. Ugandans breaking the new law abroad will be subject to extradition requests.
"The bill is haunting us," said Mugisha, 25, chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex groups that will all be banned under the law. "If this passes we will have to leave the country."
Surprise, surprise, the Murrican Kristian Taliban is party to it. Watch.
3 comments:
Excellent blogpost, fern hill. I hope this connection gets more media coverage.
What goes on in the heads of these people who make a point of working towards destroying other peoples lives?
The Rachel Maddow video is still available here at MSNBC
Also this one, in which she interviews Richard Cohen whose book was held up in Ugandan Parliament when the Kill the Gays bill was passed.
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