Genocidal Homophobia Unites Christians and Muslims in Uganda
Interfaith body attacks homosexuality, Muslim-led party introduces ten-year prison sentence, Christian-majority Parliament amends it to life imprisonment & death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality"
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Last February, an interfaith group led by Uganda's most powerful Christian clerics and the Grand Mufti of Uganda urged the government to pass a stricter law against homosexuality to "burry the LGBTQ practice in Uganda." Two weeks later, a new anti-gay law was introduced into Parliament by the Muslim-led party JEEMA. Originally, the bill aimed to punish homosexuality with a ten-year prison sentence, but the Christian-majority Parliament amended it to provide imprisonment for life for homosexuality, and death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality." A final revision of the bill was passed by the Parliament on May 2nd, with 348 votes supporting it and only one MP voting against it. The Ugandan President later signed it into law.
Uganda now has the strictest anti-gay law among all Christian-majority countries and joins a few Muslim-majority countries and regions in the world where the law can punish a consensual sex act with the death penalty. These legislative moves in Uganda come in the context of well-organised efforts by extremely homophobic local Christian groups, backed by US evangelical organisations such as Family Watch International, alongside conservative Muslims marching against homosexuality. In addition to fundamentalist religious arguments, the Ugandan anti-LGBTIQ movement repeatedly uses dishonest anti-Western rhetoric to justify its attacks against sexual and gender minorities. The MP Fox Odoi-Oywelowo, who is the leading voice in the Parliament against the the anti-gay bill, was accused by homophobic lawmakers of receiving money to promote a Western agenda. Meanwhile, the funding of homophobia in Uganda by US evangelical groups is well-documented, and various Western governments help in funding the anti-gay Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU) which urged the Parliament to pass a stricter law against homosexuality. The Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) reports systemic failures in terms of where Western money ends up, even from progressive international donors. This leads to extremist homophobic groups unintentionally receiving money from some Western governments.
LGBTIQ rights are often described as un-African by the same people who practice Christianity and Islam, two non-African religions that were used as colonial tools in Africa. From the support of colonialism by Christian institutions to promote Christianity on the continent, to the role of the slavocracy of the Omani Empire in spreading Islam in East Africa, African history shows that the same sources being used to attack the alleged un-Africanity of gay people were used to attack all Africans. On the other hand, there is considerable evidence of non-straight practices in precolonial Uganda that were acknowledged by several African ethnic groups, but the situation started changing significantly under British colonial rule in Uganda. It is also suspected that King Mwanga II in the 19th century might have been bisexual.
The homophobia is unsurprisingly part of a wider pattern of human rights abuses and corruption in Uganda that is currently threatening its democracy and economy, and it also poses a threat to the success of Uganda's mission to end AIDS. A joint statement by the Leaders of the Global Fund, UNAIDS, and PEPFAR indicates that the stigma associated with the passage of the anti-gay law is already leading to reduced access to prevention and treatment services for HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, the rise of anti-LGBTIQ hatred in politics is part of an increasing homophobia in many African countries. While many LGBTIQ individuals are fleeing to Kenya to escape persecution in Uganda, the prevalence of anti-gay rhetoric in Kenya is also getting worse. Recently, in response to the Kenyan Supreme Court's protections of LGBTIQ people's right of association, conservative Muslim MP Farah Maalim called for death penalty for homosexuality. He described it as worse than murder, said that gay people do not deserve to live, and cited fundamentalist Islamic countries as an example of what he supports. Such extremist homophobic rhetoric also finds support among conservative Christian groups in the Christian-majority Kenya.
This union between extremist Christians and Muslims against LGBTIQ rights is not unique to East Africa. In the Middle East, Lebanese conservatives from both Christian and Muslim sects are united in their threats against feminists and sexual "perverts." Even in North America, Christian and Muslim conservatives are joining forces to attack the LGBTIQ movement. In all these regions, sectarian tensions between various religions are found. The Uganda Muslim Lawyers Association (UMLAS) accuses Ugandan security agencies of discriminating against Muslims and torturing them, while dozens were killed this month in Uganda in an Islamist terrorist attack. Similar tensions can be found elsewhere. One should not expect these superficial alliances against LGBTIQ people to improve interfaith relations because both religious homophobia and religious sectarianism share the same origin. They are rooted in the hatred of people who are different and the extremist religious beliefs that seek to impose themselves on others and do not tolerate opposing beliefs. If extremist Christians and Muslims were to ever succeed in ending the LGBTIQ movement, their next step would surely be ending each other.
Phenomenal work.