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UGANDA: Proposed Homosexual Legislation Provokes Western Pan-Anglican Firestorm

UGANDA: Proposed Homosexual Legislation Provokes Western Pan-Anglican Firestorm
Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori repents of colonial behavior

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
12/15/2009

A proposed Ugandan anti-homosexual bill that could lead proponents of homosexual behavior to face the death penalty with jail for those who violate the new law has brought a barrage of outrage from Western pan-Anglican homosexuals.

The draconian laws prompted the Anglican Province of Uganda to say they oppose the death penalty, but they have issued no official statement regarding the legislation itself at this time. Joshua Kitakule, an Anglican who is the general secretary of the Uganda Interreligious Council, described the draft law as, "Okay, but it has been misunderstood; we need to educate the people about it."

Kitakule was speaking after a meeting of about 200 Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Seventh Day Adventist and Muslim leaders in Kampala on Dec. 9.

The Ugandan legislation in its current form would mandate a death sentence for active homosexuals living with HIV or in cases of same-sex rape. "Serial offenders" also could face capital punishment, but the legislation does not define the term. Anyone convicted of a homosexual act faces life imprisonment.

Nigeria, where homosexuality is already punishable by imprisonment, is considering strengthening penalties for activities deemed to promote it. Burundi recently banned same-sex relationships and Rwanda is considering it.

Western pro-homosexual activists initially lambasted the Archbishop of Canterbury for his silence on the issue. They also have short memories.

When Ugandans began to convert to Christianity in the 1800s, a group of 22 young Catholic men, led by Charles Lwanga, refused to allow them to be sodomized by the King. Enraged, King Mwanga had them torturously bound, marched 37 miles and then roasted alive in a fire pit. The date of their execution was June 3rd 1886, and is today a national holiday commemorating Uganda's rejection of homosexuality and commitment to Christian values.

No one has tried a similar approach to the openly homogenital president of Changing Attitude, (the Rev.) Colin Coward, or his sexual predator friend, Davis Mac-Iyalla, a Nigerian Anglican Gay activist, whom VOL exposed as a homosexual predator while touring seminaries in the US for practicing their behavior. Coward openly ripped the Archbishop of Canterbury for his silence on this legislation while the ABC opined that a bishop-elect lesbian in the Diocese of Los Angeles would continue to fragment the Anglican Communion. Later some 3,000 Anglicans lobbied for Williams to retract a statement he made on the election of The Episcopal Church's second openly gay bishop.

No right minded person believes such a law should be passed and it has been roundly condemned by American Evangelical activist Rick Warren, a man who is single-handedly, along with his wife, combating AIDS in Rwanda.

What has truly riled English activist Anglican homosexuals like Coward is the refusal by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams to speak up fast enough for the LGBTQ's community agenda, angering and infuriating sodomites like Coward and The American Episcopal Church's Integrity crowd. They roundly condemned the ABC with one observer noting that it looks as though the whole gay industry has latched on to Uganda as a stick with which to beat Rowan. (The Rev) Susan Russell, lesbian Episcopal activist, accused the Archbishop of Canterbury with fanning the flames of homophobia."No wonder the communion he is so worried about is coming apart at the seams," she said.

The Archbishop's office said he is working diplomatically behind the scenes with the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi to frame a response.

However, on Dec. 12 in an interview with a London newspaper, Dr. Williams said legislation pending in the Ugandan Parliament that would introduce the death penalty for people who violate portions of that country's anti-homosexuality laws "is of shocking severity."

These were the first public comments Williams made about the proposed changes to Uganda's existing laws against homosexuality. The bill being advanced by a member of parliament has drawn opposition from leaders and advocates in the Episcopal Church and elsewhere.

"Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can't see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the communion has said in recent decades," Williams told a reporter for "The Telegraph".

Williams added in his comments to "The Telegraph" that "Apart from invoking the death penalty, [the proposed bill] makes pastoral care impossible -- it seeks to turn pastors into informers." He also noted that while the Anglican Church in Uganda opposes the death penalty, its archbishop, Henry Orombi, has not taken a position on the proposed changes to the law.

The truth is HIV/AIDS is killing large numbers of people. Every state should be trying to prevent it, and not pretending that it somehow has no connection with rampant immorality.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said that the church believes "the public scapegoating of any category of persons, in any context, is anathema" and thus is "deeply concerned" about a proposed Ugandan law that would introduce the death penalty for people who violate that country's anti-homosexuality laws.

Jefferts Schori also noted in her statement that "much of the current climate of fear, rejection, and antagonism toward gay and lesbian persons in African nations has been stirred by members and former members of our own church.

"We note further that attempts to export the culture wars of North America to another context represent the very worst of colonial behavior," she said. "We deeply lament this reality, and repent of any way in which we have participated in this sin."

Nowhere has the Episcopal gay community condemned Jefferts Schori for admitting Western complicity in what has and is going on in Africa. Nowhere has the queer community admitted that Muslim anger towards Christianity in Africa has been fueled largely by the West's adoption of homosexual behavior that they find so abominable. It has queered evangelistic efforts on that continent in many places.

One Ugandan wrote VOL to say that Jefferts Schori's repentance on behalf of her entire church for their colonial behavior in exporting the culture wars is an encouraging change of attitude and should hopefully lead to further laments and repentance concerning her church's involvement in the break-up of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Don't hold your breath.

The standard for sexual behavior is Scripture and, in the case of the Anglican Communion, the Lambeth Conference Resolution 1:10 passed in 1998 which described homosexual practice as being "incompatible with Scripture" but also condemned homophobia and "any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

Anyway one cuts it, pan-sexuality is continuing to rapidly polarize and destroy the Anglican Communion. The homosexual community will not be stopped or thwarted in their ambition for full acceptance. At the same time the Global South has made it abundantly clear that it has no intention of rolling over to the queer behavior and politics of Western Anglican pansexual behavior. The lines have been starkly drawn; there is no going back.

END

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