News How Are American Evangelists Influencing Anti-Homosexuality Laws in Uganda?

[Count Iblis]

Smallpox vaccinations may be a factor here too:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8686750.stm

The worldwide eradication of smallpox may, inadvertently, have helped spread HIV infection, scientists believe.

Experts say the vaccine used to wipe out smallpox offered some protection against the Aids virus and, now it is no longer used, HIV has flourished.

The US investigators said trials indicated the smallpox jab interferes with how well HIV multiplies.

But they say in the journal BMC Immunology it is too early to recommend smallpox vaccine for fighting HIV.

 

[zomgwtf]

Smallpox vaccinations may be a factor here too:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8686750.stm

I've heard of such claims before. The way I heard it was slightly different though. They claimed that the WHO inoculated quite a large number of Africans which had 'woken' up a dormant strand of the AIDS/HIV virus.

The source you provided probably is more up-to-date considering the amount of research put into the situation.

 

[Geigerclick]

Risky sexual behavior and substance abuse: Compared with white men, black men are considerably less likely to acquire HIV through unprotected sex with other men (73% for white men compared with 49% for black men). Unprotected heterosexual sex and needle-injecting drug use are the leading causes. Among African American women, however, some 80% are infected through heterosexual contact. Stigmas surrounding gay behavior among men has led many to lead dual lifestyles, whereby their women are unaware of the unsafe sexual practices of their male partners.

http://www.epigee.org/health/hiv_aa.html

Zomgwtf, keep in mind that many posts ago I said the highest risk was anal sex, period. Obviously Male-Male intercourse is almost exclusively anal, and your supposition about why that is aside, that means the risks for protected and unprotected encounters is higher than vaginal or oral intercourse. So, sure, white men are the biggest number, but the issue is demographic risk:

Indeed, while African Americans account for some 12% of the population, they represent nearly 50% of those affected by HIV and AIDS. And African American women are nearly 20 times more likely to acquire the deadly virus than white women.

Put that together with the statistics about homosexual contact being less of a leading factor in the African American community compared to the white community, and you are reaching some inescapable conclusions.

As it has been pointed out, black women suffer from the "down-low" phenomenon disproportionately, and while that is related to homosexual activity, it is not the method of transmission.

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/insite?page=ask-01-01-05 To refute the notion that homosexual men simply are uneducated about safe-sex. Some sex is inherently less safe, and being the receptive partner during anal intercourse is risky, even with a condom.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.htm

Yes, it is disproportionate for gay men, but the reasons are not clear, and the ASSUMPTION that promiscuity or lack of education is the leading cause compared to inherent risks of anal intercourse requires more than you have provided here.
As for harsh remarks, that is one hell of a stone to be throwing from you glass house.

 

[Janus]

When I read the original post, a name jumped out at me: "Scot Lively". I checked, and confirmed that it was the same Scot Lively who was a leader in the OCA, a organization, that in the nineties, tried(unsuccessfully) to get a slew of Anti-homosexuality laws passed here in Oregon.

While I (and most Oregonians) are glad to be rid of him, I'm sorry to see that he is still spreading his poison elsewhere.

 

[Gokul43201]

Yes, it's the same Scott Lively alright. Here's a report he posted from his trip to Uganda last year:

I'm writing from Kampala, Uganda where I am teaching about the "gay" agenda in churches, schools colleges, community groups and in Parliament. My visit here is being treated as an international crisis by the "gay" activists and their media toadies, who are spinning lies in their usual manner, but the Ugandan response has been resoundingly positive.

My week began with a meeting with about fifty members of the Ugandan Christian Lawyers Association on the evening of my arrival, then an address to members of the Parliament on the following morning. There were from fifty to one hundred persons in attendance, including numerous legislators and the Minister of Ethics and Integrity, with whom I enjoyed a personal chat for more than half and hour leading to the event.
...
Now my attention is turned to equipping the activists in Uganda with helpful materials. I have given them permission to make unlimited use of Defeating "Gay" Arguments With Simple Logic, and Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child (a much-esteemed book among the Africans). I still want to send them my remaining stock of about 100 or so copies of Seven Steps, but I didn't raise any money toward this in my last appeal. If you would like to help, please make a donation at www.[edited[/URL] out].php.

Please also pray for my ministry (which has come under withering attack in recent weeks) and the Ugandan people.

Your Fellow Servant,

Dr. Scott Lively[/quote]

Lively has expressed disappointment that the Ugandan bill includes the death penalty and has said he would endorse the bill if they dropped the death penalty.

[url]http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=10045436[/url]Returning to more recent happenings ...
[quote][b]Ugandan Gay Activist Found Beheaded[/b]

Uganda has been in the headlines ever since a lawmaker there last year proposed legislation that would punish some gays with the death penalty. But it would seem that some in Uganda are not waiting for the bill to pass into law: a priest has vanished after delivering a sermon urging compassion for gays, and a young GLBT equality activist, who had also disappeared, has been discovered dead--his head severed from his body and thrown down a latrine.

...[/quote]

[url]http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=107653[/url]Meanwhile, back here in the US, the Canyon Ridge Community Church, which funds Martin Ssempa [religious spearhead of the Ugandan Bill] has come under the spotlight:
[quote] Martin Ssempa, who pastors the evangelical Makerere Community Church in Kampala, has become the face of Uganda's anti-homosexuality movement. He has organized anti-gay rallies. He preaches that many homosexuals are pedophiles who deserve severe punishment, and he wants to ensure that "sodomy and homosexuality never sees the light of legality in this land of the people of Africa."

"This is sick, and it is therefore deviant," he told a large church crowd. "We do not want it."

He even shows hard-core gay pornography in churches and conferences — images that, critics say, whip up sentiment against gay men and lesbians.
...
So why does Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas — a megachurch with some 6,000 congregants each week — financially support Ssempa?

Kevin Odor, the senior pastor there, says Ssempa has been "misrepresented."

"His heart is not to kill people," Odor says. "He is a pastor of the Gospel that believes in redemption and his heart is to redeem people."

Odor says Canyon Ridge began supporting Ssempa's huge campus ministry, which preaches abstinence to college students, in 2007. Odor says he does not "personally" endorse the death penalty or life sentences for gay men and lesbians. Asked why he would support someone who does, he sighs.

"We want to help the AIDS problem in Africa, and we found somebody who is making a difference," he says. "So we support him."[/quote]

[url]http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128491183[/url]

 

[Proton Soup]

Meanwhile, back here in the US, the Canyon Ridge Community Church, which funds Martin Ssempa [religious spearhead of the Ugandan Bill] has come under the spotlight:


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128491183

Ssempa is a nut. he has been running around showing people not simple "hard core" gay pornography, but scat porn. just the most vile stuff you can dig up. and presenting this as the norm of homosexual behavior.

this youtube video is censored and uses a lot of baby talk. you won't get "goatsed", but you can see the reactions of those who were.

 

[russ_watters]

I hadn't seen this thread before, and didn't read the whole thing, so I may have missed someone commenting on this, but it seems to me that focusing on a handful of nutty activists is missing the real problem The idea that this handful of activists could have a serious influence on a national government is pretty silly unless that government already has a strong predilection toward those ideas. The west has been trying to change the truly barbaric practices and philosophies existing in Africa for decades and gets pretty strongly rebuffed. Heck, we even have food aid rejected due to paranoia!

So the fact that some activists got an audience isn't the driver of the issue. Those activists are there because the audience was available and receptive - otherwise they'd have gotten their message through here! That's primarly an indictment of the government of Uganda - religious crackpots are already religious crackpots and no one should be listening to them: we don't. Primary blame needs to go where it belongs: the government that is passing the law.

 

[Gokul43201]

I hadn't seen this thread before, and didn't read the whole thing, so I may have missed someone commenting on this, but it seems to me that focusing on a handful of nutty activists is missing the real problem

The focus of the thread is not on the nutty evangelicals in the US - that is merely one aspect of the story - but it definitely is a factor that is significant enough that omitting it entirely would be careless.

The idea that this handful of activists could have a serious influence on a national government is pretty silly unless that government already has a strong predilection toward those ideas.

It has been very clearly stated and shown that the government and the electorate did already have a strong opposition to homosexuality. In fact, the predilection appears to have been stronger among the people than within the government (which has to worry about offending western sensibilities, since that is where most of Uganda's aid money comes from). What the drivers of this Bill seem to have been able to do recently, is fire up the population to such high levels of frenzy and animus that it forces the government to react.

The west has been trying to change the truly barbaric practices and philosophies existing in Africa for decades and gets pretty strongly rebuffed.

It is an oversimplification - and a unhelpful one in the context of this discussion - to lump all of the myriad influences from Western governments and cultures under a single label. Within the confines of this discussion, some of these influences include: (i) acceptance of homosexuality promoted by some tourists and the UN (at least, according to Ugandan sources), (ii) and more generally, a corruption of the Ugandan culture by western media (as expressed by Ssempa and others), (iii) the role of western NGOs and UN-related humanitarian/medical groups working in the area, (iv) the influence of the evangelical movement over the last few decades, but in the context of current events, also the specific role of those involved in the last few years, (v) the use of foreign aid, which makes up close to half the Ugandan economy, and (vi) the role of western governments and NGOs pressuring the Ugandan parliament to risk losing this foreign aid if they go ahead with the Bill.

So the fact that some activists got an audience isn't the driver of the issue. Those activists are there because the audience was available and receptive - otherwise they'd have gotten their message through here! That's primarly an indictment of the government of Uganda - religious crackpots are already religious crackpots and no one should be listening to them: we don't. Primary blame needs to go where it belongs: the government that is passing the law.

The point of this thread is not to merely identify the primary culprit, point the finger, and end the discussion. There are several socio-political aspects to this issue that are all open to discussion ... in addition to watching and commenting upon new developments as they occur (this being a current issue).

As for the role of American evangelicals, their influence is not limited to the three activists that won an audience from the Ugandan Government. We now know (okay, I now know - see previous posts) that there are churches in the US that have been funding and supporting incendiary hate-mongers like Martin Ssempa for years now. And while mainstream pastors like Rick Warren are now expressing very strong disapproval of the Bill, that may hardly be enough to undo the damage done through years of partnership with the drivers of the atrocities that we are now witnessing.

 

[aquitaine]

It is an oversimplification - and a unhelpful one in the context of this discussion - to lump all of the myriad influences from Western governments and cultures under a single label. Within the confines of this discussion, some of these influences include: (i) acceptance of homosexuality promoted by some tourists and the UN (at least, according to Ugandan sources), (ii) and more generally, a corruption of the Ugandan culture by western media (as expressed by Ssempa and others), (iii) the role of western NGOs and UN-related humanitarian/medical groups working in the area, (iv) the influence of the evangelical movement over the last few decades, but in the context of current events, also the specific role of those involved in the last few years, (v) the use of foreign aid, which makes up close to half the Ugandan economy, and (vi) the role of western governments and NGOs pressuring the Ugandan parliament to risk losing this foreign aid if they go ahead with the Bill.

It's also accurate to some degree, perhaps the perfect example of this is slavery. Another would be widespread belief in magic and other crazy stuff.

 

[croghan27]

That's primarly an indictment of the government of Uganda - religious crackpots are already religious crackpots and no one should be listening to them: we don't. Primary blame needs to go where it belongs: the government that is passing the law.

The 'never the twain shall meet' works well in theory - but all too often in Africa (and in N. America as well - see the Rachel Maddow piece) they are one and the same.
__________________

 

[Gokul43201]

Finally, a little relief: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12107596