Tag: molotov mitchell

You can’t make this stuff up: South Carolina endorsements for Rick Santorum

If I wanted to write a parody of an anti-gay, Mormon-baiting news release, I couldn’t do a better job than this real one from three South Carolina fundamentalists claiming to be evangelicals and to speak for evangelicals.

Some money lines:

  • Days before Saturday’s GOP Presidential primary here, there are signs that South Carolina evangelical Protestant leaders are starting to follow the lead of peers in Iowa and Houston who have rejected Mitt Romney, a Mormon, in favor of Rick Santorum, a Catholic. The driving thrust of the evangelical argument: Homosexuality.
  • Mills said, “The Word of Almighty God, from the Books of Moses to those of the Apostle Paul, commands faithful Jews and Christians to be homophobic. Carolinans have a God-fearing homophobia, while Mitt Romney wrongly endorses homosexuality as a good choice for our young people.
  • Rev. Mills said, “Because Rick Santorum was willing to sign this wonderful Iowa vow last summer while Romney was calling for more gay hiring and other silly liberal things that Massachusetts RINOs embrace, I’d say Senator Santorum has proven himself a courageous Catholic Christian whom any Bible-believing Jew, Protestant or evangelical can support. He does not drink the anti-science Kool-Aid to the effect that homosexuality is inherited and immutable like fingerprints.
  • [Endorser Molotov] Mitchell said, “Mitt Romney is kind of like the RINO country club hetero version of Dan Savage, and in his own vacuous way, far more dangerous to hetero-traditionalism. I hope Santorum makes a big splash on Romney’s empty suit this Saturday.”
  • Rev. Mills said, “Romney’s liberal support for homosexuality is not only at doctrinal odds with traditional Judaism and Christianity, it’s even at odds with latter-day cults like Islam and Mormonism. As an evangelical pastor, my core problem with Romney is not necessarily with the fact that he has been an elder in the cult of Mormonism – which holds that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, that we have a Heavenly Father and Father and that Jesus is the created brother of Satan – but rather, that Romney rejects traditionalist Mormon stands as well as basic Judeo-Christian stands against homosexuality in favor of a cluelessly-liberal, anti-family public policy.

 

The “wonderful” marriage vow referred to above that Santorum signed was the one that initially said, “Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-­American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-­parent household than was an African-­household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

Those familiar with Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill might remember Molotov Mitchell. He is the friend of Martin Ssempa who misled his audiences with falsehoods about the scope of the bill and offered his support for passage of the legislation.

I wonder if Rick Santorum will tout this endorsement…

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Rumors of amendment have been greatly exaggerated

Canyon Ridge Christian Church pastor Kevin Odor told his congregation earlier this month that one reason they continue to support Martin Ssempa is so they can have an influence on his work. Since March when they met with Ssempa, he has gone a little quieter. He did meet with Muslims to rally support in May and in late March, he called Molotov Mitchell to complain that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was being misrepresented. Mitchell then did a video which claimed to accurately describe the bill. That video is up on the WorldNetDaily video site but appears to have been removed from the initial March 31 WND post. (Check that, it is now back up)

This comes up because yesterday Rob Tisinai (ht BTB) described a Facebook conversation with Molotov Mitchell where Mitchell is still claiming that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is being misrepresented. Mitchell said this in his March video about the AHB:

A deliberate disinfo campaign has convinced tons of people that Ugandans want nothing short of gay genocide.  I decided to look deeper.  This isn’t my opinion, this isn’t Rick Warren’s opinion, this isn’t even MSNBC’s monolithic gay opinion.  This is what’s in the bill.  Uganda’s anti-gay bill formally extends the death penalty to homosexuals who commit pre-existing capital crimes.  They are as follows:

#1 — Pedophilia or sexual abuse of the handicapped.

#2 — Knowing that you are HIV+ yet continuing to spread it to others, and

#3 –  Using positions of authority to coerce others into performing sexual acts.

That is it.  That’s as far as the “genocide” goes.

Anyone who has read the bill knows that those #1 and #3 are in there, but #2 is distored by Mitchell because the bill does not require knowledge of HIV status, let alone intent to spread it. That distinction in #2 is pretty important and Mitchell leaves out the reference to “repeat offenders” of other offenses of the bill which could be just about anyone. Failure to report homosexual behavior more than once could be construed as a repeat offense as defined by the bill. He completely ignores the life in prison for homosexual behavior aspect, and the extradition for gay behavior elsewhere, and the fines or jail terms for failure to report. If death is not involved, it must be a-ok with Martin Ssempa’s friend, Mitchell.

So Tisinai tells Mitchell that he is distorting the bill and Mitchell says:

Sorry Rob, but you’ve got shady info. There are multiple versions of the bill, even one that has no death penalty at all. The version I was discussing was the same one Pastor Ssempa was (and is?) supporting. The Left Wing is touting early versions and even fake versions of the bill, but they’re wrong. No bill calling for the execution of straight people will be presented or passed.

The problem here is, as Tisinai points out, is that Mitchell in his video claimed that he was not telling us opinions about the bill, but what was actually in it. But which bill? Mitchell says there are several versions; he says Ssempa has a version. He acknowledged he has not actually seen this bill but going on what he has heard. By this logic, there could be as many versions as there are people in Kampala.

Mitchell could be referring to the same recommendations that Martin Ssempa gave to Canyon Ridge Christian Church from the Uganda Joint Christian Council. I have that here but those recommendations do not constitute a new version of the bill. If me and a few of my professor friends here at GCC made up some recommendations to Congress about the health care bill, would I have been justified in telling people in Uganda that our recommendations constituted another version of the health care bill?

Are there different versions of the bill? Perhaps there are some proposals floating around but the official version is still the one published by the Uganda Gazette in September, 2009. To make sure, several days ago I went to the source, Uganda’s Parliament, to find out if any amendments had been read. Charles Tuhaise is a researcher for the Parliamentary Research Service and the President of the National Association of Social Workers – Uganda. I asked him if the rumors of amendments were true. He replied:

To the best of my knowledge, these rumours are unfounded. There are many Bills pending in committee and it is not clear when each of the pending bills will be tackled. Committees have no mandate to amend a Bill, but to present their proposals to the House in a report read by the Committee Chair.

In case it is unclear, by “many Bills” Mr. Tuhaise is referring to many bills on multiple subjects, not many versions of the AHB. When the AHB was first read in October, the bill was assigned to the Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and the Committee on Presidential Affairs. There was some debate on the matter but the Speaker asked the CLPA to take the lead with help from the CPA. According to Charles Tuhaise, the bill is still before those committees and cannot be amended without consent of Parliament. The role of the committee is to make recommendations but those come in the form of a report to Parliament.

It would really aid the conversation between all parties, supporters, opponents and undecided, if supporters would simply post the bill and discuss what is current. Martin Ssempa said he would do that on March 11 in a radio show with Michael Brown. Instead, he called Molotov Mitchell sometime afterwards and complained that people were distorting the bill. And from what Mitchell said, he didn’t see a copy of it before he told the world what was in it.

This really is pretty simple. Everybody, supporter and oppponents, post the Uganda Gazette copy (wait, opponents have already done that). We discuss what it says. Then if people want to discuss what they think should be in it, then we could call those proposals.

Molotov Mitchell spins the record

Note: the ads for Bing, Dell, Resolve, etc., seem to have disappeared from the Mitchell video below…

Another day, another need to post the actual text of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Molotov Mitchell makes little film clips that WorldNetDaily puts up on various topics. Yesterday, he put up a second video on the Ugandan bill which claims to tell viewers what the bill says. He takes on an unfortunate straw man and then creates one of his own.

I have rarely used the short hand, “Kill the Gays Bill” because David Bahati’s bill does not impose the death sentence on all homosexual behavior. However, one could call it, “Kill-Some-Gays-and-Jail-the-Rest-for-Life Bill.” The longer description ceases to be shorthand but it is more accurate. In this video, Mitchell takes on the narrower description and then critiques it. To attack what he considers to be a false picture of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, he creates a false and incomplete picture. Here’s the vid:

First of all, why are Resolve and Dell advertising on this video?

Anyway, Mitchell says the death penalty is given for three offenses: pedophilia or sexual abuse of the handicapped, knowingly spreading HIV to others, and using positions of authority to coerce others to have sex. He says, “that is it.”

Well, for the record, that is not it.

Yet again, let’s review the bill which you can read here. And by the way, here is another big fan of the bill who does not post it or make it available to his viewers.

Here are some portions of the AHB relevant to Mitchell’s claims. First from the introduction: 

The object of this Bill is to establish a comprehensive consolidated legislation to protect the traditional family by prohibiting (i) any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex; and (ii) the promotion or recognition of such sexual relations in public institutions and other places through or with the support of any Government entity in Uganda or any non governmental organization inside or outside the country.

And, in the definitions section:

“serial offender” means a person who has previous convictions of the offence of homosexuality or related offences;

“touching” includes touching—

(a) with any part of the body;

(b) with anything else;

(c) through anything; and in particular includes touching amounting to penetration of any sexual organ. anus or mouth.

And from section 2:

2. The offence of homosexuality.

(1) A person commits the offence of homosexuality if-

(a) he penetrates the anus or mouth of another person of the same sex with his penis or any other sexual contraption;

(b) he or she uses any object or sexual contraption to penetrate or stimulate sexual organ of a person of the same sex;

(e) he or she touches another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.

(2) A person who commits an offence under this section shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.

Note, no mention of children in section 2. And note that touching with the intent to commit homosexuality gets a life sentence. Recall how touching was defined. Now, what if you touch someone and you are HIV positive? Examine the death penalty section:

3. Aggravated homosexuality.

(1) A person commits the offense of aggravated homosexuality where the

(a) person against whom the offence is committed is below the age of 18 years;

(b) offender is a person living with HIV;

(c) offender is a parent or guardian of the person against whom the offence is committed;

(d) offender is a person in authority over the person against whom the offence is committed;

(e) victim of the offence is a person with disability;

(f) offender is a serial offender, or

(g) offender applies, administers or causes to be used by any man or woman any drug, matter or thing with intent to stupefy overpower him or her so as to there by enable any person to have unlawful carnal connection with any person of the same sex,

(2) A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death.

(3) Where a person is charged with the offence under this section, that person shall undergo a medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status.

Section 3, line b and f is where the private consensual behavior could result in death. Arguably, line d could be construed as forbidding consensual relationships between a boss and a co-worker. Perhaps the author intended some kind of sexual harassment but the way the bill is written, this is not clear. When Mitchell says the bill says the death penalty is reserved for people who use a position of authority to coerce compliance, he is reading into the language.

Mitchell takes another leap when he says the bill requires intentional spread of HIV. As written, it does not require knowledge of status, nor does it require intention to spread HIV. In this section, HIV testing is required. If no HIV, then section 2 might apply, if the person is HIV positive, then section 3 is relevant. Perhaps none of this is what David Bahati intended but the language of the bill does not include anything about intention to spread HIV to unsuspecting persons. The plain language requires only touching with the homosexual intent, and HIV positive status.

For reasons only he knows, Mitchell omits the line which provides the death penalty to serial offenders. People can be put to death for committing “related offenses” to those covered in this bill more than once. What are those?

Finally, he glosses over the life sentence component by saying there might be other aspects of the bill about which one could argue. Would it be ok to oppose it if we just said we oppose Uganda’s “Kill-Some-Gays-and-Jail-the-Rest-for-Life Bill?”

If those who support the bill would simply acknowledge what was in it and then say, here is what we mean or here is what we think it should say, that would be a different conversation. Then, a debate could take place on the actual proposals. However, as illustrated by this video, those who support the bill often spin what it says and then won’t provide the bill for their readers to see what it says.

For the record, who will be first to link to it?