Ugandan president condemned after passing anti-gay law

Campaigners attack Yoweri Museveni as he approves life imprisonment for 'aggravated homosexuality'

The Guardian, The Observer, David Smith, Africa correspondent, Sunday 16 February 2014

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni is to approve anti-gay laws based on
the advice of 'medical experts'. Photograph: Carl Court/AP

Rights campaigners and health professionals have condemned Uganda's president after he said he would approve controversial anti-homosexuality laws based on the advice of "medical experts".

Yoweri Museveni told members of his governing party he would sign the bill – prescribing life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality" – that was passed by parliament late last year, dashing activists' hopes he might veto it.

Ofwono Opondo, a government spokesman, tweeted on Friday that "this comes after 14 medical experts presented a report that homosexuality is not genetic but a social behaviour".

The MPs, attending a party conference chaired by Museveni, "welcomed the development as a measure to protect Ugandans from social deviants", Opondo added.

When Twitter users from around the world then criticised the announcement, Opondo responded: "Hey guys supporting homosexuals take it easy Uganda is a sovereign country #you challange [sic] the law in the courts."

Under existing colonial-era law in Uganda, anyone found guilty of "carnal knowledge against the order of nature" can already face sentences up to life imprisonment. But the new bill represents a dramatic broadening of penalties. It bans the promotion of homosexuality, makes it a crime punishable by prison not to report gay people to the authorities and enables life sentences to be imposed for various same-sex acts, including touching in public.

When the bill was abruptly passed by MPs just before Christmas, Museveni came under pressure to ratify it both within his own party and from Christian clerics who see it as necessary to deter western homosexuals from "recruiting" Ugandan children.

The president, who has been in power for 28 years, said he wanted his governing National Resistance Movement (NRM) to reach what he called a "scientifically correct" position on homosexuality. A medical report was prepared by more than a dozen scientists from Uganda's health ministry, officials said. They told Museveni that there is no gene for homosexuality and it is "not a disease but merely an abnormal behaviour which may be learned through experiences in life". Dr Richard Tushemereirwe, presidential adviser on science, said: "Homosexuality has serious public health consequences and should therefore not be tolerated".

Anite Evelyn, spokesperson for the NRM conference, said: "[Museveni] declared that he would sign the bill since the question of whether one can be born a homosexual or not had been answered. The president emphasised that promoters, exhibitionists and those who practise homosexuality for mercenary reasons will not be tolerated and will therefore be dealt with harshly."

The bill is popular in Uganda, one of 37 countries in Africa where homosexuality is illegal. Ugandan gay activists have accused some of their country's political and religious leaders of being influenced by American evangelicals.

Frank Mugisha, who heads Sexual Minorities Uganda, said: "President Museveni knows that this bill is unconstitutional and that we shall challenge it after he signs it, although I still think he will not sign this particular bill the way it is. But his political remarks about signing will only increase violence and hatred towards LGBT persons in Uganda."

The findings by Museveni's medical experts were disputed in an open letter by more than 50 of the world's top public health scientists and researchers. "Homosexuality is not a pathology, an abnormality, a mental disorder or an illness: It is a variant of sexual behaviour found in people around the world," they wrote. "Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are normal."

They warned that the laws could undermine the fight against HIV by driving these groups away from public health services because of "fear of arrest, intimidation, violence and discrimination".

Robyn Lieberman of the watchdog group Human Rights First said: "There should be no doubt that Museveni's latest words on the subject have been influenced by the reaction to similar legislation in Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere."

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Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon: Regarding homosexuality or transsexuals. WHY are they the way they are and WHY are they not accepted in mainstream society?

Answer: [From the Kryon Office]

There is often a tremendous amount of information on subjects that are not necessarily part of the on-line magazine Q&A database. Kryon has been channelling for fourteen years, with 9 books covering many, many topics. Homosexuality was one of them from the very beginning. Please see our "Books index page" for subjects contained in the Kryon books: [http://www.kryon.com/direct.html]

An excerpt from Kryon Book 6, page 306

Question from the book: Dear Kryon, I am gay, and an enlightened man. I live in an American society that barely tolerates me, and actually has some laws against my way of life. The church I used to belong to cast me out as being evil and anti-God. I don't feel that I am violating some Human ethic. My love is as true as any heterosexual, and I am a light worker. Tell me what I should know.

Answer from the book: Dear one, less than two generations from now, there will be those who find this book and laugh at the quaintness of this very question. Before I answer, let me ask you and those reading this to examine a phenomenon about Human society and "God."

Thirty years ago, interracial marriage was considered to be wrong by the laws of God. Now your society finds it common. The spiritual objections around it were either dropped or "rewritten" by those divinely inspired and authorized to do so. Therefore, your actual interpretations of the instructions from God changed with your society's tolerance level--an interesting thing, indeed, how the interpretations of God seem to change regularly to match a changing culture!

The truth, of course, is that you find yourself in a situation that is known to create a test for you. Right now, in this time, you have agreed to come into your culture with an attribute that may alienate you from friends and religious followers. You have faced fear of rejection and have had to "swim upstream," so to speak, just as an everyday life occurrence. Your contract, therefore, has been set up well, and you are in the middle of it. Additionally, like so many like you, you have a divine interest in yourselves! You feel part of the spiritual family. What a dichotomy indeed, to be judged as evil by those who are the high spiritual leaders--interpreting God for today's culture.

Now I say this: What is your intent? Is it to walk with love for all those around you and become an enlightened Human Being in this New Age? Is it to forgive those who see you as a spiritual blight on society? Can you have the kind of tolerance for them that they seem not to have for you? Can you overlook the fact that they freely quote their scriptures in order to condemn you, yet they don't seem to have the love tolerance that is the cornerstone of their own message?

If the answer is yes, then there is nothing else you must do. Your INTENT is everything, and your life will be honored with peace over those who would cause unrest, and tolerance for the intolerable. Your sexual attributes are simply chemistry and setups within your DNA. They are given by agreement as gifts for you to experience in this life. Look on them in this fashion, and be comfortable with that fact that you are a perfect spiritual creation under God--loved beyond measure--just like all humans. But then you know that, don't you?