Normally a “no comment” response is not very newsworthy, but in this case the reply might signal a more serious effort to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill over the next several days.
Today, I spoke briefly with Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee chair Stephen Tashobya who declined to comment on my questions about his committees report on the anti-gay bill. When asked other questions about the legislation, he said he was unable to comment in any way on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
This is a departure for Mr. Tashobya who told me several months ago that his committee had more important business than the anti-gay measure. Tashobya has always been willing to discuss the progress (or more often the lack of progress) of the bill in his committee. However, I suspect he has been instructed to decline requests for comment.
I then spoke briefly with Mohammed Katamba who is an information officer with Parliament. He indicated that the committee report has not been completed and there was no date set for debate on the bill.
Recall that, in recent weeks, Uganda’s Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has pledged to bring the bill to the floor of Parliament for a vote before Christmas. The bill has new life thanks to Kadaga and passage seems more probable now than ever.
Text of the 2011 committee report on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. This report changes some wording but leaves in the death penalty.
Full text of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009.
Ever the expert in Ugandan politics….
Chairman Tashobya is not under any obligation to furnish information to meddlesome foreigners…..
By the way, what I’ve been told fits with this report (which was published yesterday): http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Kadaga-wants-anti-gay-Bill-tabled/-/688334/1621218/-/j0h230z/-/index.html
Back to the original post: I’m not surprised Tash is keeping quiet. I suspect that much is ‘bubbling away’ under the surface just now … and poor old Tash probably doesn’t know which way to look or which horse to back.
In my humble opinion, Ugandan politics is in serious danger of degenerating into a dangerous farce that will harm Uganda and Ugandans. (It is quite astonishing that a country’s politicos should seek to ‘assert their sovereignty’ by passing a law that would cause only harm to that same country.)
Just heard that Bill might be sent to floor of parliament next week (i.e. in a few days time), assuming that Tash is in a position to comply with Kad’s wishes.
It’s all a big mess, ‘Maazi’ – and one that will do (is doing) your country nothing but harm.
It’s never too late to see sense, you know …
Apparently that podgy priest, Simon Lokodo, is keen on bloodshed.
He is reported as saying this: “The claim for same sex marriage is deviant behaviour and an abomination to our society and religion ungodly people practice such characters of evil, filth and paganism norms. They should be taken as murderers,defilers,rapists and strong rebel group penetrating in our state. I therefore possess a stand backing the church in any designed manner to press parliament for the anti-homosexuality bill to be passed in it original form, they deserve criminalization instead of their pretence of claiming human rights. Such groups should forget anything about human rights for we have had enough of it and its enough. This is the only mandatory strategy to destinations of sustainable peace in our dear Uganda.”
Note that he apparently wants the Bill passed in its original form … in which the Bill remains of course (no amendments have been voted by those ‘car cash’ MPs).
I just wonder if Kadaga may have ‘overreached’ … like Bahati before her? (Bahati’s naked – and almost absurdly vicious – extremism was one very good reason why the Bill is not already law; Kadaga’s possible ‘overreach’ could be of a rather different kind.)
Since Miss Kadaga has set herself a fairly tight ‘deadline’ for getting through her new pet project, we should know soon enough.
I wonder how much anti-Gay American Evangelical and Religious Right money is backing hateful Ugandan Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga’s push for a kill-a-Gay-for Jesus bill in Uganda ?
(One indication of the ‘mess’ is the amount of lying – some of it exposed on this blog – done by proponents of the ‘Hang the Gays Bill’. I would just cite again one of ‘Maazi’s’ own lies: back in December 2009 he wrote [in response to an article in the National Catholic Reporter], “Gays who keep their heads down … will be left alone,” with reference to the original, and – let us not forget – current, draft Bill. What a whopper!!! To be fair to him, perhaps it was unintentional; perhaps he just hadn’t bothered to read the bill he said he was supporting.)
I forgot to ask about the car! How’s it running?
By the way, what I’ve been told fits with this report (which was published yesterday): http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Kadaga-wants-anti-gay-Bill-tabled/-/688334/1621218/-/j0h230z/-/index.html
Just heard that Bill might be sent to floor of parliament next week (i.e. in a few days time), assuming that Tash is in a position to comply with Kad’s wishes.
(One indication of the ‘mess’ is the amount of lying – some of it exposed on this blog – done by proponents of the ‘Hang the Gays Bill’. I would just cite again one of ‘Maazi’s’ own lies: back in December 2009 he wrote [in response to an article in the National Catholic Reporter], “Gays who keep their heads down … will be left alone,” with reference to the original, and – let us not forget – current, draft Bill. What a whopper!!! To be fair to him, perhaps it was unintentional; perhaps he just hadn’t bothered to read the bill he said he was supporting.)
I forgot to ask about the car! How’s it running?
It’s all a big mess, ‘Maazi’ – and one that will do (is doing) your country nothing but harm.
It’s never too late to see sense, you know …
Ever the expert in Ugandan politics….
Chairman Tashobya is not under any obligation to furnish information to meddlesome foreigners…..
Back to the original post: I’m not surprised Tash is keeping quiet. I suspect that much is ‘bubbling away’ under the surface just now … and poor old Tash probably doesn’t know which way to look or which horse to back.
In my humble opinion, Ugandan politics is in serious danger of degenerating into a dangerous farce that will harm Uganda and Ugandans. (It is quite astonishing that a country’s politicos should seek to ‘assert their sovereignty’ by passing a law that would cause only harm to that same country.)
Apparently that podgy priest, Simon Lokodo, is keen on bloodshed.
He is reported as saying this: “The claim for same sex marriage is deviant behaviour and an abomination to our society and religion ungodly people practice such characters of evil, filth and paganism norms. They should be taken as murderers,defilers,rapists and strong rebel group penetrating in our state. I therefore possess a stand backing the church in any designed manner to press parliament for the anti-homosexuality bill to be passed in it original form, they deserve criminalization instead of their pretence of claiming human rights. Such groups should forget anything about human rights for we have had enough of it and its enough. This is the only mandatory strategy to destinations of sustainable peace in our dear Uganda.”
Note that he apparently wants the Bill passed in its original form … in which the Bill remains of course (no amendments have been voted by those ‘car cash’ MPs).
I just wonder if Kadaga may have ‘overreached’ … like Bahati before her? (Bahati’s naked – and almost absurdly vicious – extremism was one very good reason why the Bill is not already law; Kadaga’s possible ‘overreach’ could be of a rather different kind.)
Since Miss Kadaga has set herself a fairly tight ‘deadline’ for getting through her new pet project, we should know soon enough.
I wonder how much anti-Gay American Evangelical and Religious Right money is backing hateful Ugandan Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga’s push for a kill-a-Gay-for Jesus bill in Uganda ?