Nothing brings Christians and Muslims together in Uganda like Plan B

This report is a little hard to follow but it sounds like a few Christians met with a large group of Muslims to celebrate Sharia law when it comes to gays.

I have been wondering where Martin Ssempa has been and it appears he was just taking a break. He is here networking with his Islamic brothers to praise the way they do it in Iran and Gambia. I don’t believe I have seen any news reports of this rally. If anyone reading has a report I missed, let me know.

UGANDA: Sheiks Ranch Anti-Homosexuality Campaign

Uganda national sheikhs task force against homosexuality ranched its campaign against homosexuality with help of national Muslim Dawa association of Uganda.

After the advocates for anti gay bill realized it might not succeed, Uganda national sheikh task force against homosexuality ranched a serious campaign against homosexuality in Uganda.

The rally attracted over 300 people mostly Muslims at crock tower stadium on Entebbe road.

Muslims at the anti gay rally held on 23rd may 2010 in Kampala

They had invited various leading politicians like Minister of Ethics Nsaba buturo, the bill mover in parliament Hon .bahati, Inspector general of police Kale Kayihura, religious leaders among others who did not turn up due to pressure from international community. 

Pastor male rubbished the anti gay bill explaining that they had initially requested for commission of inquiry into homosexuality instead bahati and his group hijacked them by introducing the anti gay bill with clauses they knew community and external World will definitely resist and hence rejecting the bill.

Among the articles he mentioned is the death penalty, HIV /Aids testing, compulsory reporting and confidentiality clause which allows the courts of law to hear such cases in camera yet the press has been very instrumental in exposing homosexuality as a vice. He also went on to say that the constitution of Uganda needs amendment since it allows privacy of individuals meaning that it’s very hard to track homosexuals in their houses.

He assured the audience that Uganda has a similar law in the penal code like in Malawi. He praised the Malawi government for imprisonment of the two gay activist. He says it’s instead the government, police and the judiciary to put this in practice like how it happened in Malawi. He attacked police which usually turn against victims and instead harass them on reporting homosexuals and their acts. He cited examples like pastor kayanja’s case.

Among others who attended included sheikh kaketo who reminded the audience how and why Allah created a man and woman.

He called upon the government to enact laws that protect the values in the community for better governance of our country.

Sheikh Mbabari cautioned the audience to desist from acts that will fall them into victims and turn way from religious values.

Pastor sempa defended the anti gay bill in parliament. He called upon the house to debate the bill and see which articles are unnecessary and go ahead to pass it into law. 

He went ahead to explain the four stages how homosexuals penetrate the country.

Tolerance, equal rights, minority right and lastly is special privilege.

He deliberated how many Ugandans flock Dubai as business community yet all are homosexual sex workers. He rubbished the western community and world leaders like obama that Uganda cannot accept such nonsense.

A lot of praise went to president Yaya of Gambia who made it clear that he will slaughter any gay person in public, Authorities in Iran and Sudan who strongly use Muslim teaching against homosexuality.

Reason learnt from today’s rally.

The main focus of the rally depicted that Pastor Male believe the anti gay bill cannot help the community instead it supports homosexuals and pastor Sempa believe parliament will debate the bill, make necessary amendment and make it a law. He called upon the public to pressurize parliament to debate it and pass into law. However both agree to use the Muslim community to be at forefront and use the quoran teaching to fight against homosexuality. 

In conclusion therefore the struggle is not yet over and we call upon the entire LGBTI community to be alert and make necessary follow ups as these people have started on their plan B. 

ATTENDED BY CHAIRMAN SPECTRUM UGANDA SAM GANAFA AND PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER

Moses Mulindwa

PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER

Courtesy of SPECTRUM UGANDA

Malawi couple pardoned – UPDATE: State Dept issues statement

This is an interesting development…

Mr wa Mutharika had been under international pressure to reconsider the convictions of Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20. They were arrested in December after they were united in a traditional wedding ceremony in the conservative southern African country, where homosexuality is illegal.

The two men were tried and found guilty of sodomy and indecency earlier this month in a trial viewed as a test case for homosexual rights in the country.

Mr Ban, who was due to address the National Assembly later, is expected to ask the legislators to change the laws on homosexuality.

His decision will be seen as a victory by campaigners who had challenged the conviction and length of the sentence.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary General, met the Malawian president on Saturday in the capital Lilongwe.

 Speaking shortly afterwards, Mr wa Mutharika said: “These boys committed a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws.

“However, as the head of state I hereby pardon them and therefore ask for their immediate release with no conditions.”

He added: “I have done this on humanitarian grounds but this does not mean that I support this.”

UPDATE: The State Dept issued a statement today:

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Washington, DC
May 30, 2010

 

I join President Obama in applauding President Bingu wa Mutharika for his wise and courageous decision to pardon Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza. He has provided an example for nations across Africa and the world as they debate laws that criminalize sexual orientation.

 

Human rights belong to all, and must be respected by all. Sexual orientation and gender identity should under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.

 

This is a good day for Malawi, for Africa, and for people of conscience everywhere.

Bryan Fischer and the Nazis: This is what I meant by vilification

On Monday, I wrote about the corrosive effect of the culture war on the real business of Christianity. In that post, I wrote

On the other hand, my great concern is that culture warring lulls people into feeling that that the cause justifies the considerable offense that comes with vilifying those the church yearns to reach.

As if to volunteer to be Exhibit A, Bryan Fischer helps define “vilifying” for us. On his American Family Radio program this week, Fischer, who erroneously believes the New Testament teaches criminalization of homosexuality) made the tired and discredited link between homosexuality and the WWII Nazis. He did not do this as an attempt at a lesson in history but as a part of his opposition to gays serving openly in the military. He did not simply comment on his moral opposition to homosexuality, teaching his view of the matter from the Bible. He vilified an entire group of people based on distortions of fact and the behavior of a few. Listen for yourself, transcript to follow:

So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn’t the Germans, didn’t the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals. But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals.

When Fischer says that Hitler could not find straights to be savage enough, he goes beyond even Scott Lively’s imagination. This is one clear example of what I meant by vilifying.

He followed up his radio performance with a column defending his views by quoting books by Lothar Machtan and of course, Scott Lively. Machtan speculates that Hitler was homosexual, although other historians have explored this possibility and most of them are skeptical. I explored the matter in this post and you can get a more objective look at the matter via the documentary Men, Heroes and Gay Nazis. I have a clip here dealing with Machtan’s book on the question of Hitler’s sexuality:

Note that the historians other than Machtan point out that there is no proof, no eye witness account. When Fischer confidently says that Hitler was an active homosexual, he misleads his numerically substantial audience. And he does so make a far more sinister point which he makes explicit in a column out today. In that article, he extensively quotes Lively’s book The Pink Swastika and echoes Lively when he writes:

Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.

Regarding the specific claims of the Pink Swastika, I did a series of posts with the help of historian J.D. Wyneken. We found that The Pink Swastika took some historical facts, threw in a lot of wild speculation and simply overlooked disconfirming facts to create a false picture – one which Bryan Fischer summarized over this last week to support his culture war position.

Here are related posts in that series:

May 28 – Scott Lively wants off SPLC hate group list

May 31 – Eliminating homosexuality: Modern Uganda and Nazi Germany

June 3 – Before The Pink Swastika

June 4 – Kevin Abrams: The other side of The Pink Swastika

June 8 – A historian’s analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 1

June 9 – A historian’s analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 2

June 11 – American Nazi movement and homosexuality: How pink is their swastika?

June 15 – Nazi movement rallies against gays in Springfield, MO (See this one regarding Fischer’s association of American Nazis with homosexuality)

June 17 – Does homosexuality lead to fascism?

June 23 – The Pink Swastika and Friedrich Nietzsche

June 29 – The Pink Swastika and The Hidden Holocaust?

July 6 – The Pink Swastika and Hate 2 Hope (See this one regarding Fischer’s association of American Nazis with homosexuality)

Factoid: Fischer is a confirmed speaker at the Values Voter Summit.

Uganda tells Germany it does not support Anti-Homosexuality Bill

The government of Uganda has made a commitment to Germany not to pass any additional penalties on homosexuality. The promise comes in exchange for a German aid. Here is the Earthtimes article referencing a letter from the Ugandan government.

Posted : Fri, 28 May 2010 11:57:27 GMT

Berlin – Uganda has reassured Germany it does not support a bid by one parliamentarian to outlaw homosexual acts, in order to win an extension of existing aid payments, German officials said Friday.

The German development aid ministry said in Berlin it had cleared pledges totalling 120 million euros (148 million dollars) to Uganda over the next three years.

That aid would be conditional on Uganda not passing any legislation imposing new penalties on homosexual acts.

Gay groups protested round the globe last year when a Ugandan legislator, David Bahati, proposed an anti-homosexual bill, calling for life imprisonment for homosexual acts and death for homosexual rape of children.

Uganda’s parliament has studied the bill but not passed it.

Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa sent a written assurance to Hans-Juergen Beerfeltz, state secretary at the German Aid Ministry, saying that the government in Kampala does not support Bahati’s legislation.

“We regard this letter as a positive signal and will continue to insist that the bill does not become law,” said Beerfeltz. He spoke after Ugandan and German officials conferred Wednesday and Thursday on the aid pledges.

The money will be used to fight poverty, stop water wastage and reduce carbon emissions. German Aid Minister Dirk Niebel earlier said he would halt aid to Uganda if the bill were passed.

If accurate, this report seems to be the clearest signal yet that the Ugandan government is now opposed to the Bahati bill. Sam Kutesa was one of the early voices in opposition and this makes it official policy.

American College of Pediatricians answers critics; removes Rekers

The American College of Pediatricians is the small breakaway group from the larger American Academy of Pediatrics. The ACP maintains the FactsAboutYouth website which I have critiqued here and which is the subject of this Minnesota City Pages article. Gary Remafedi is the main subject of the article, although it mentions Francis Collins letter as well as the concerns I expressed in my post on the subject.

In short, the article revives the request from Remafedi to alter the way the ACP reports his work:

The ACP argues that schools shouldn’t support gay teens because they’re probably just confused. “Most adolescents who experience same-sex attraction…no longer experience such attractions at age 25,” the letter says, citing a 1992 study by Remafedi.

Except that’s not what Remafedi’s research suggested at all. His work showed that kids who are confused about their sexuality eventually sort it out—meaning many of them accept being gay.

“What was so troubling was that these were fellow doctors, fellow pediatricians,” Remafedi says. “They knew better, and they have the same ethical responsibilities to their patients that I do, but they deliberately distorted my research for malicious purposes.”

On their website, the ACP has answered their critics. In letters to Francis Collins and Remafedi, the ACP justifies their work. The ACP also mentions my critique but did not respond to it. They say here that I did not contact them. I did not contact the headquarters but I did contact some of the committee members with various concerns. Their rebuttals are not persuasive to me.

In a related development, the ACP has removed George Rekers from their website and psychosocial committee. According to Rachel Maddow’s blog, the move was because Rekers won’t answer their contacts and not because they are distancing themselves from his actions. The ACP added NARTH luminary Neil Whitehead to the committee.