Jeff Sharlet, an investigative journalist and author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power – about a US-based religious and political organisation, met and interviewed David Bahati, the Member of Parliament who came to international attention after introducing Uganda's draconian anti-homosexuality bill in October 2009.
The proposed bill, which has attracted international outrage since it was announced last year, would impose prison terms for Ugandans who fail to report a homosexual within 24 hours, and the death sentence for homosexuals who had sex with a person under 18, who is HIV-positive and had sex, had gay sex with a disabled person or being classified as a "serial offender" – that is, someone who has gay sex more than once. Already under Uganda’s Penal Code Act of 1950, those who engage in the “unnatural offence” of gay sex may be imprisoned for life, and those who merely attempt to do so can be imprisoned for up to seven years.
The assistant professor of English at Dartmouth College and contributing editor of Harper's Magazine recounts his meetings with Bahati at his home which is "way high up in the hills outside Uganda" and at a "very, very upscale hotel (restaurant)" in a September 2010 Harper's piece, "Straight Man's Burden."
Sharlet says he visited Kampala at the invitation of Bahati who had told him: “If you come here, you'll see homosexuals from Europe and America are luring our children into homosexuality by distributing cell phones and iPods and things like this.
"And he said, 'And I can explain to you what I really want to do.' "
That is "to kill every last gay person," Bahati told the journalist.
Sharlet recounts on a NPR radio programme: "It was a very chilling moment, because I'm sitting there with this man who's talking about his plans for genocide, and has demonstrated over the period of my relationship with him that he's not some back bencher – he's a real rising star in the movement. This was something that I hadn't understood before I went to Uganda, that this was a guy with real potential and real sway and increasingly a following in Uganda."
Sharlet explains that Bahati is one of the Uganda leaders of an American evangelical movement called the Fellowship, or the Family – the secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians who wield considerable political influence, both in Washington and abroad.
Last year, NPR quoted Bob Hunter, a longtime member of The Family, that neither he nor anyone he knows in The Fellowship supports the Ugandan bill.
Sharlet however wrote that he had discovered a “very direct relationship".
"And [the Fellowship members] are emphatic and saying: 'We haven't killed any gay people in Uganda. This isn't what we had in mind. We didn't pull the trigger.' And that's true. They didn't pull the trigger. But there's a sense in which they built the gun, which was this institutional idea of government being decided by small groups of elite leaders like Bahati, getting together and trying to conform government to their idea of Biblical law. And this is what their American benefactors wanted them to do."
The Anti-Homosexual Bill remains with the Ugandan Parliament's Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and has not been put to a vote.
The president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni who is reportedly a member of The Fellowship, has distanced himself from the bill as a result of intense international lobbying by non-governmental organisations and international governments including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada France, Sweden and Germany. The European Parliament on 16 December 2009 passed a resolution against the bill, which threatens to cut financial aid to Uganda.
Jeff Sharlet's article "Straight Man's Burden" is published in the September issue of Harper's. An excerpt of the article can be read here.
Read transcript of radio interview.
Reader's Comments
The US evangelicals in the Fellowship and their Ugandan brethren are getting back to their roots.
Shame on any gay American who votes Republican - as it empowers and embraces the Fellowship as part of the GOP.
Shame on any Christian who does not disavow the homophobic hypocrisy of a movement that picks part of Leviticus to justify our murder, while failing to observe any other "law" in the same section - like eating only kosher food, seeing a Rabbi for treatment of leprosy, judging baldness, etc.
He's nothing special. He's hiding a dark secret (pun intended) whilst desperately trying to rise to notoriety by copying history*.
Been there, done that girlfriend.
Your butt plug's too tight, loosen up and eat your own poo poo. :D
*http://gaylife.about.com/od/gayhistoryfacts/a/hitlerpink.htm
Last paragraph is most gratifying - international communities and even his own president wanting nothing to do with this bill. Hopefully before too long he'll just be a harmless has-been rather than the evil dictator type.
When will mankind ever see the idiocy of religion? Since the first religions were invented they have done nothing but cause people to hate each other. Religions change and their Gods change...what will be the next religion to attract the stupid and moronic?
Interesting face, too. It's all bloated with certainties and ego, and I can't help but think of the frog in the fable who wants to become as fat as the bull.
In this case, "holier than Bush" is the agenda, apparently. Well, bloat away, buffoon ! gays will always be there but you won't.
And don't you guys go wishing he begets a gay son because it's monstrously unfair and cruel to the son !
now he wants to kill gay people?
leadership in moral issue? you??!!
i think you need some dicks in those cock sucking lips of yours...that will shut you up, baboon.
"you'll see homosexuals from Europe and America are luring our children into homosexuality by distributing cell phones and iPods and things like this."
...Did anyone tell him Bruno wasn't real...?
Now, back to the news!
not really sure what he meant by "“If you come here, you'll see homosexuals from Europe and America are luring our children into homosexuality by distributing cell phones and iPods and things like this." ...Question , is he referring to a group of gays in Uganda luring kids into sex by giving them handphones and ipods ?" then it is a sad generalisation and it is sad that an MP made such broadbrush assumption. Also it is sad that a section of our LGBT have to resort to such despicable act and now tarnishing our already fragile image.
but I would like to ask ...what does gay sex means ? anal or oral sex ? So what happens to heterosexuals who had or attempted to have anal and oral sex ? So if any woman who is being forced to do such unnatural sex can also report that to authority ? or someone who knows two consenting hetero doing the so called "unnatural " sex can also report them to authority ? the law is also silent about bisexuals ?
the law "seems to " be protecting those under 18, disabled and also from being infected with HIV ..which is not really a bad thing :-P(probably a little tweak that if a HIV person knowingly have unprotected sex with someone ...blah blah blah ..then it would sound better, no ? ) I think it is also the same case of a german girlband who recently infected a men with HIV or something but just the punishment is not as harsh)
oh my god ...how cum I see some Bahati kind of reaction here in our brothers and sisters' comment here ? violent does not end violent dear ....he just need some gay sex to enlighten him ...thats all ;-)
We should kill them all.
Don't forget, he got all these stupid ideas and religion from The Family religion group in USA. His ancestors prayed to trees and animals as their Gods. Now, he has a WHITE religion. Oh, No, it was originated from Arab region. Oh No..... Complicated !
God is compassion and love. Do we have to read the whole bible to understand him? Our technology is getting more advanced every month, these groups of religion people are backward as far as thousand years.
here's a drop of irony that God'll place in his life: his family member closest to him being a supporter of LBGT movement :|
of course, being a fishing basket himself, he'll stick true to his words, and later on regret it, and commits suicide.
nice ending, huh?
he doesn't know the real meaning of human love
We'll get you first, don't worry about that! After all, gays number in the hundreds of millions, and how many in your silly group????
What is the non-violent way to stop this? Where is Ghandi when we need him?
By killing all gays.. he won't be tempted to sleep with any gays lol.
Hhehehehh....Get a life!
Enough said.
cf # 5, 7, 23, 24, 34, 47, 49...
I guess it takes the worst to bring out the worst, but it's sad.
I agree with you 'muta1964' (comment 43) and all this heinous behaviour makes your question about Gandhi all the more pressing.
But seriously... so far, there is no unified coordinated global "gay agenda" to fight back against these genocidal crazies.
But the bolder and more extreme these crazies get, the closer they will force an equally powerful reaction one day.
They have their hey day now, revelling in their self righteous condemnation, subjugation and intended-slaughter of a minority. But I for one am waiting for the fireworks to begin.
This is a prime example of why I'm an athiest.
The Mexican newspapers "La Jornada" just published on 31 August an interview of Fidel Castro in which he says :
" the Cuban authorities were wrong to send gays and lesbians in labor camps during the first years of my presidency... these were moments of great injustice, great injustice indeed! "
In the early 70s, gays and lesbians were banned from all public posts, sent to prisons or labor camps.
Asked if the Cuban Communist Party or other entities were to blame for what happened, Fidel Castro answered "no, there is only one person responsible, and that's me".
You should be ashamed of yourselves.
If africa say they do not want the bad habit of homosexuality and lesbianism in their children,who are we to force them?if u follow africa history and culture well,man having sex with man was first discovered in africa when the whiteman came to their land.
It happed in many Conservative countries, by many toxic religious and Evil politicians.
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