“Kill The Gays” – David Bahati’s Quest to Convert Me to Heterosexuality

February 12, 2011

“Kill The Gays” – David Bahati’s Quest to Convert Me to Heterosexuality

by Melanie Nathan – LetzgetReal.com

After David Bahati, the Member of the Ugandan Parliament who authored what has become known as the “KILL THE GAYS” bill came to the United States last year, I wrote an article title “BAHATI Booted out of the USA”, detailing his departure from this country after his now notorious interview on the Rachael Maddow show. And soon after Bahati contacted me, concerned about my reports on his visit and his departure were not accurate, and saying he wanted to set the record straight. But is that all he wanted to set straight….

Bahati believed that he had been most welcome in the USA, despite my reporting about a planned massive protest of his visit and asserted that: “BAHATI Booted out of the USA” was not a fair depiction of his departure.

He was right -my depiction he was ‘booted out” was probably not fair, since the request for him to depart US shores was a lot more subtle and perhaps the word “nudged out” would have been more accurate description of his departure from the United States. However I was somewhat frustrated having played a lead part in stalling the grassroots protests because I was informed that Bahati’s movements in the U.S. were being tracked by some groups who wanted to see who he was cavorting with here in the U.S.A.

But what soon followed was a series of unexpected and extended phone calls between Bahati and me, which spanned the past several months, and increased in frequency during my reporting on the Brenda Namigadde and David Kato cases, when Bahati started to call me and comment on my reports.

Over the past few months I have released snippets of my conversations with Bahati, on the surface a likable and gregarious man; yet the contents were quite shocking. And during our conversations… the more we spoke… the more I realized that this man of truly sinister intentions and that the exposure of his country’s stance against homosexuality had attracted his attention to me in an almost obsessive way.

But I never fully understood just how sinister and obsessed this man truly is ….

Fast forward to yesterday, February 10, 2011 – David Bahti calls me at my home: Bahati wants me to write about Uganda in a positive light – he wants me to “convert” from being a lesbian – and he wants me to visit Uganda…

MN: Hello Mr. Bahati what is going on in Uganda?

DB: nothing much really; we just waiting for election; the President
is going to win; it is very very peaceful here

MN: People are saying that President Museveni is suppressing the election

DB: It will be free and fair because the process is good; it will be okay -Uganda is very peaceful country.

MN: Yes but Sir, do you realize that the anti-homosexual law is making it not a peaceful country because of murders such as David Kato – people there think it is okay to kill gay people ….

DB: This law has nothing to do with that – it is about the children being safe from the homosexual who are recruiting them in our schools

MN: Is that the words of Scott lively and the other Evangelicals who came from the USA? Were you at the seminar that Mr. Lively gave in Uganda?

DB: No I was not there- Scott Lively has nothing to do with the law for homosexuals -That is very insulting for people to think that Africans cannot think for themselves. We are not puppets on issue of homosexuality. We don’t have to wait for America to know that the children are being destroyed and this homosexuality is spreading. There is a group promoting it – from overseas money- “The Sexual Minorities Group”- they are Uganda group – they must stop what are they doing – to promote homosexuality – My sister, what you need to do - you really need to come here to see what is happening in schools for yourself. That is the best way you will understand.

The groups who are funding Sexual Minorities Group- are operating in Uganda. If you come you will see this going on. What is happening is we have the problem of promotion and funding it – I want you to visit us here and go to those schools and stop them sending their money from America to recruit homosexuals….

MN: Mr, Bahati – I will be very happy to come to Uganda, but I do not believe I am welcome or that I will be safe because I am a lesbian and you know that; Can I bring my wife?

BH: You will be very well rested ( me:Arrested??) here… we can reform you here.

This morning I awoke to a report out of the UK that detailed the BBC’s Radio One DJ Scott Mills and his accounts of his meeting with Ugandan MP David Bahati.

The 36-year-old Mills was filming a show called The World’s Worst Place to be Gay? For BBC3, when he confessed his sexual orientation to British-educated politician David Bahati – who Scott then said “went mental”.

Mills said, “He was scary. He ordered us to cut the cameras then brought a security guard.”

“We ran off and he rang one of our guys saying, ‘Where are they staying? What are the registration plates? I want them arrested. They won’t get far’.”

Fortunately Scott’s colleague lied about their location, and armed police arrived at the Sheraton – where they had been falsely told the team was staying.

Mill’s continued, “I’d heard horror stories about people getting arrested and roughed up and who knows what. I was scared.”

During our conversation yesterday, my initial impression of David Bahati’s offer to come to Uganda, was, that it was probably rhetorical, and his threat to arrest me and “convert” me was offered as a dark jest.

But, after reviewing the context my past contacts with him and tone in which he said those things to me yesterday, I am now sure that he has become completely obsessed over the gay press coverage reporting on the situation in Uganda and Bahati was serious in both his offer to go to Uganda and his threat to arrest and “convert” me.

Is it David Bahati’s intention to lure me to his country and force me, by whatever mean necessarily, to give his world view of homosexuality? Lacking that, I believe he thought he could coerce me into favorable reports. He tried long enough, over the phone- to no avail.

Shortly after my discussion I received a message from a friend who had been kidnapped and horribly tortured -over night, in Uganda- intimidated into withdrawing his campaigning for the opposition Party in the upcoming election. My friend is in great pain and terror. Even though this has nothing to do with being gay, per se, I have now been exposed to the lie first hand – that there will never be a fair and free election and that Uganda’s beauty is duly masked by Museveni, Bahati, government backed tabloids, and the gay scape-goating employed to divert attention from the real Ugandan truth- there is no democracy in Uganda!

I am likewise now sure, with no shade of doubt in my mind, that David Bahati is a very dangerous man, empowered with drafting legislation that could obstruct Uganda’s progress as a global player and also a clear motivator for more murder and mayhem in Africa.