US Dealing with the Devil in Uganda but Still Hope on Gay Human Rights
President Museveni of Uganda appears to be open for discussion with U.S. experts on the subject of gay rights, according to news reports. AFP is saying the president has“agreed to meet with American experts to discuss his nation’s draconian anti-gay law.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly told told US students he had talked with Museveni recently and he “committed to meet with some of our experts so that we could engage him a dialogue as to why what he did could not be based on any kind of science or fact.”
U.S. experts won’t have any problem, scientifically speaking, disproving the propaganda spread in Uganda by American fundamentalists like Scott Lively, who faces a lawsuit for his alleged role in the persecution of Uganda’s gay minority.
Reports the L.A. Times in an article about American evangelicals exporting hate: In January, a federal judge in Massachusetts allowed a lawsuit filed against Lively by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of a Ugandan gay rights group to proceed. The suit contends that Lively, who has also written a book claiming the Nazi movement was inspired by homosexuals, has aided and abetted crimes against humanity by encouraging the persecution of Uganda’s gay minority.
But there is a growing suspicion that President Museveni’s real motive for Uganda’s anti-gay law is more self-serving. Reports the L.A. Times (slightly paraphrased): Said American filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, whose 2013 “God Loves Uganda”correlated the explosion of homophobia in Uganda to the missionary work of American evangelical megachurches: “This is a dictator using the gay community as a scapegoat. Museveni is up for reelection in 2016, so this is kind of a smart political move on his part to distract the public from the real issue, which is corruption and survival, and focus it on a vulnerable population. Everyone in Uganda is frustrated, so they can take out their frustration on the LGBT community.”
Indeed, if that is the case, Museveni will be just going through the motions with U.S. experts, perhaps with his eye on international aid for his country.
Regardless of Museveni’s motives, the U.S. must surely know it is dealing with the devil in Uganda.
Faint hope, indeed.
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