Ugandan Church questions anti-gay bill: CEN 2.26.10 p 8.

David Bahati, MP

The Church of Uganda has urged a revision of that country’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, objecting to calls for the death penalty for those who have homosexual relations with minors, the disabled, or while being HIV-positive.

The controversial bill has gained widespread opprobrium overseas, and has been condemned by government and church leaders, including the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

On Feb 9, the Church of Uganda voiced its opposition to the bill. It asked that any law protect the “confidentiality of medical, pastoral and counseling relationships, including those that disclose homosexual practice in accordance with the relevant professional codes of ethics.”

On 14 Oct MP David Bahati of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) tabled a private-members bill before parliament entitled the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ that would stiffen Uganda’s sodomy laws. Bahati’s bill seeks to establish a legal definition of homosexual acts that would provide for their criminalization, and impose harsh sanctions, up to the death penalty, for “crimes against nature.”

The church endorsed the Bahati’s general aims of proscribing the “promotion of homosexuality as normal or as an alternative lifestyle,” and urged that homosexual practice not be “adopted as a human right,” but rejected the proposed harsh penalties.

The church further asked that sex education and gender identity programmes sponsored by the government be “in compliance with the values and the laws of Uganda,” and that laws be adopted defining marriage as being between a man and a women.

The recommendations follow the December statement of the Ugandan Joint Christian Council which said the “problem of homosexuality cannot be addressed by the law alone.”

Uganda’s Christian churches were “concerned about the spiritual wellbeing of all members of the human family, including those who find themselves trapped in questionable lifestyles such as gays and lesbians.”

Coercion was not the solution, the churches concluded, appealing to “all parties to seek sustainable solutions to this problem. This would, among other things, involve teaching, mentoring, counseling and rehabilitation of all victims who are within reach,” it said.

On Feb 15, the South African bishops released a statement condemning the Bahati bill. “Though there are a breadth of theological views among us on matters of human sexuality, we see this Bill as a gross violation of human rights and we therefore strongly condemn such attitudes and behaviour towards other human beings,” the said.

The South African bishops voiced their concern about the “violent language used against the gay community across Sub-Saharan Africa,” and urged governments to defend the “rights of minorities.”

“As Bishops we believe that it is immoral to permit or support oppression of, or discrimination against, people on the grounds of their sexual orientation, they said.