No wisdom
It’s so horrible about David Kato.
A school teacher, he became a prominent campaigner in recent years, especially taking on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which called for the death sentence to be imposed for some homosexual acts…
Ms Kimani said he was one of the most visible gay campaigners in Uganda, serving as the litigation officer for the group Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug)…
He often faced accusations that he was trying to groom children, which Ms Pepe, who worked with him at Smug, blamed on “religious propaganda”.
“These allegations were of course were false,” she said…
Rebecca McDowall, a student in London who met Mr Kato at an event recently, said he was aware that what he was doing was dangerous.
“He was so inspirational as a public speaker,” she told the BBC. “He looked like a small unassuming person but when he got up, you couldn’t help but sit up and listen.”
Ms Pepe said Mr Kato’s family and friends are still in shock.
“We spoke to Waswa yesterday, he’s equally devastated – he’s trying to hold it together but he’s shattered because of course they were really close,” she said.
She and Mr Kato were chatting on the phone about an hour before he was attacked – and he had been laughing and joking.
“I keep hearing his laughter in my head – it breaks my heart,” she said.
Horrible. I have nothing wiser to say.
First Taseer then Giffords and now Kato; it’s a bad month for the forces of tolerance and peaceful pluralism.
Not to mention the godawful stonings that Lauryn Oates reports, and Leo Igwe’s “arrest” and beating. A terrible month!
But, but ‘It makes people feel good and help them deal with issues’ says Stephen Asma. Stupid prat.
It seems it really does help people deal with their issues. It helps them deal with them permanently. Provided, of course, those issues are other people.
Let’s not forget — this is religion in action! Let’s never forget this. It goes on and on and on, and it won’t stop until people begin to ask why? Why should we believe this? What makes this true? How do you know it’s true?
Religion is a mad blight on the moral landscape, and we need to say this over and over and over again until people begin to get the point. It’s going to take a long time, but it’s worth doing, because nothing else is going to bring an end to this madness.
Really.
I’m giving this talk tomorrow in Vancouver, and the illustrative material is just pouring in.
I’m not sure this is purely a religious thing. From the articles you linked to Ms. Benson, it sounds like a lot of this comes from Africa’s deep xenophobia and it having identified ‘gayness’ as Western/against what it means to be African. Of course I don’t doubt for a minutemuch of the anti-gay propganda being pushed (I’ve bumped into that one about gays trying to corrupt our youth more times then I can count right here in the states) is coming from the religious.
Chris Matthews, on MSNBC’s “Hardball”, reported today, 27 Jan 2011, that Glenn Beck has been smearing democratic supporter George Soros as a Nazi collaborator who sent Jews to death camps. Soros was a 14 year old Jew who was hiding with a Christian family. Rabbi’s across the country took out an Ad in the Wall Street Journal (I think today) to protest this falsehood.
A new low in right-wing propaganda.
This is sad news indeed. Although I admire the bravery and defiance of such liberal campaigners, we must all be aware of the dangers of being so. We are individuals who are outnumbered by the mob.
Julian: this is indeed coming from the religious right. David Bahati, who introduced the anti-gay bill in Uganda’s parliament, is a leading protege of fascist american politicians; most notably those of the so-called “family”. I don’t usually refer to wikipedia but this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_%28Christian_organization%29
is substantially accurate.
I’m deeply saddened by this, though not even slightly surprised. When I was watching some interviews with gay activists in Uganda last month, I was just wondering how long each of those people had to live. I guess it’s morbid, but at the same time I think that they really were probably looking around at each other and wondering who the next martyr was going to be and when. They know the odds, which is what makes their bravery more inspiring. One can always hope that the violence will spare as many people as possible.
@Julian
Mere xenophobia can’t explain it, because a lot of the homophobia is itself imported from “the West”. The arguments against homosexuality in Uganda look a lot like the older arguments from the US, largely because they were actually exported by the religious right.
The best known examples are the connection between Martin Ssempa and Rick Warren, followed by Scott Lively’s influence on homosexuality bills (He’s the “the Nazi leaders were all gay” guy). And of course Catholicism is not based in Africa, and Islam is often seen as a primarily Arab phenomenon (despite the obvious counterexamples such as most of Indonesia).
I think the causation is complicated, but mostly works the other way around. That is, because religion is seen as good and sexual “immorality” as bad, the former is considered consistent with Ugandan culture, while the latter is assumed to be a pollution from outside, regardless of the actual sources.
There’s also a connection between anti-gay bias and local superstitions regarding witches and Satanism. I heard one leader (I’m pretty sure it was Ssempa, but don’t quote me on that) saying that homosexuals were practicing witchcraft in secret caves in the area.
@7
Sailor1031 (#10) has it right. Jeff Sharlet has done some great reporting on the connection between certain elements of the American religious right and what’s happening in Uganda. His books, The Family and C Street, along with other articles he’s published, provide some extremely important context here.
I think while general homophobia in Africa is not purely a religious thing, it is clear (see Sharlet’s reporting) that the current onslaught of violence and hatred toward LGBT persons in Uganda gets its license almost entirely from religion. Homophobia does not begin and end with religion—but this much is true: in this day and age, wherever in the world there’s someone making an argument against the dignity and personhood of LGBT people, the odds are very good that that person is making a religious argument.
An interview Sharlet did with The Advocate: http://www.advocate.com/News/News_Features/Jeff_Sharlet_on_Uganda/
@All
I stand corrected.
Maybe I’m missing it somewhere, but I have neither seen nor heard expressed outrage on the part of liberal Christian leaders on this issue, demanding redress from their co-religionists who are, without dispute, involved in the support of these atrocities. Now, one would think that this is a topic on which the ‘compassionate’ Christians, moderate Muslims, “cultural’ religionists of every stripe would stand with us. Or not.
So, I know we made the point already, but I just wanted to say that we forgot Lou Engle, who held an event in Uganda where he railed against homosexuality, and where the promoters of the “kill the gays” bill spoke about it. He’s rubbed shoulders with several U.S. politicians including Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee.