Ed Brayton, over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, points to a post by Jason Kuznicki, who has written an open letter to the African nation of Uganda. Inspired by radical, anti-gay clerics, Ugandan legislators are set to consider a draconian law that would criminalize homosexuality and, in certain circumstances — rape or a positive HIV status, involve execution by hanging. Kuznicki makes some observations that are, at once, startling, terrifying and, at the same time, hardly a surprise. He notes that the language of the Ugandan exterminate-the-gays bill has an eerily familiar ring to it:
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.
This Bill aims at strengthening the nation’s capacity to deal with emerging internal and external threats to the traditional heterosexual family.
This legislation further recognizes the fact that same [sex] attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic.
The Bill further aims at providing a comprehensive and enhanced legislation to protect the cherished culture of the people of Uganda. legal, religious, and traditional family values of the people of Uganda against the attempts of sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of sexual promiscuity on the people of Uganda.
There is also need to protect the children and youths of Uganda who are made vulnerable to sexual abuse and deviation as a result of cultural changes, uncensored information technologies, parentless child developmental settings and increasing attempts by homosexuals to raise children in homosexual relationships through adoption, foster care, or otherwise.
(emphasis: from the original)
If the highlighted verbiage sounds familiar, that’s because Americans are persistently bombarded by that same hateful rhetoric in the media on a near-daily basis. We hear it from the politicized pulpits of the radical religious right, we hear it from sham, so-called pro-family, pro-life organizations like the Family Research Council and the National Organization for Marriage, we hear it from domestic terrorists like Scott Roeder and clueless puppets like Carrie Prejean, and we hear it from elected public officials — both Republican and Democrat.
Following revelations that representatives of so-called ex-gay conversion therapy groups — specifically Exodus International and the International Healing Foundation, and the sex-scandal-plagued and, until recently, highly secretive The Family, and the leader of multiple anti-gay hate groups and holocaust-denier, Scott Lively, invaded Uganda, and spoon-fed like-minded homophobes these exact words and phrases, it should surprise no one that Uganda is now poised to engage in a campaign of genocide against its gay and lesbian citizens.
There’s much more at Brayton’s blog.
Jason Kuznicki blogs at Positive Liberty. Here’s a taste of Kuznicki’s open letter to Uganda:
I, however, am writing to you today because this very law looks neo-colonialist to me. It looks like a stale rehash of what we’ve argued about the United States for most of my life, albeit I see that you play for rather higher stakes over there. As Michelle Goldberg put it in The American — gasp — Prospect, “The ludicrous idea that gays and lesbians are imposing their values on Uganda — or that gay adoption is even on the table in that country — demonstrates the way American rhetoric pervades that country’s anti-gay politics.” Sadly, you seem to get this stuff… from us.
Uganda: We’ve been having this same debate — full of this same solicitous, hyperventilating care for the traditional family — for years. We heard it from Anita Bryant back when Idi Amin was still in power. Over here we worry that Scandinavia is imposing its values on Iowa. But in any event, the people who are telling you the loudest to be your own nation, not to accept colonial values, not to ape the West — these very people are aping the worst aspects of the West.
I won’t spoil it. Check it out.
(tip: Ed Brayton)
Click for Printable Version
