Category: LGBT Politics

David Kato has been murdered. Given the climate of hate against LGBT people that has been encouraged in Uganda by both the State and organised religion*, it comes as no surprise. It still shocks though, and for those still in danger in Uganda, things must seem very dark at the moment.

* Oh, and, we really should not forget, the sorry excuse for a human being who goes by the name of Giles Muhame. As the Guardian reports:

He and other recent graduates of Makerere University in Kampala launched a newspaper late last year. With a circulation of fewer than 3,000 copies it would have remained obscure were it not for its anti-gay campaign.

For its 2 October issue, it pictured Kato and another man on the front page under the words “Hang them”, and the sub-headlines “We Shall Recruit 100,000 Innocent Kids by 2012: Homos” and “Parents now face heart-breaks [sic] as homos raid schools”. The paper promised to expose 100 gay people, and printed the photographs, names, and in some cases home areas, of people it claimed were gay. A few weeks later Rolling Stone carried another frontpage story with the headline “More homos’ faces exposed”, with the identities of 17 people inside.

I see that Mr. Muhame is reported to have said that “I have no regrets about the story. We were just exposing people who were doing wrong.”

I’m sure that he does have no regrets. People like him never do. They just continue to cause misery and to make the angels weep.

Further update: here are some other people, listed in a rightfully angry obituary who doubtless also have few regrets, but who should really recognise their responsibilities:

The responsibility for the repeated harassment, beatings, death threats and now possibly his murder lies with all those politicians and religious leaders around the world who have led the campaign of hate against LGBTIQ people: David Baharti who introduced the anti-homosexuality bill in the Ugandan parliament; the Red Pepper tabloid which like the Rolling Stone had published names of people they alleged were gay; Martin Ssempa who led the Ugandan national task force against homosexuality; Ugandan Minister of Ethics Nsaba Buturu who has rabidly spoken out against homosexuality; the following religious leaders who have fueled the anti-gay campaign in the region: Archbishop of Rwanda, Onesphore Rwaje, Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda, the All African Bishops Conference, Apolo Nsibambi of Uganda, Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi, Archbishop Akinola, Pastor Mulinde of Trumpet Church Uganda, Bishop Lawrence Chai of Free Apostolic Churches of Kenya and Sheikh Ali Hussein of Masjid Answar Sunna Mosque and Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria; Peter Karamaga of the National Anti-Homosexual Task-force Uganda; President Museveni who has showed no support for gay Ugandans saying that homosexuality is a western import receiving support from other African presidents like President Mugabe and Mrs Museveni who in the same vein has called homosexuals an abomination to African culture; American Christian right pastors Lou Engle, Rick Warren, Scott Lively and Dan Schmierer of the ex-gay group Exodus International, for their continued support of anti-gay legislation; South African diplomat Jon Qwelane and President Jacob Zuma. Finally, responsibility lies with those in power in regional and international bodies who have refused to take a stand on homosexuality as a human rights issue. Last year, the African Union denied the Coalition of African Lesbians observer status. Around the same time, the UN General Assembly Human Rights Committee passed a resolution condemning extrajudicial executions, deleted from this resolution was an amendment that explicitly addressed protections based on sexual orientation.

I noted earlier this month that a UN Committee had proposed removing the reference to sexual orientation in the UN’s resolution on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. It was a move led by African and Arabic nations – in other words, the usual suspects when it comes to their record on human rights abuses against lesbians, gay men and transgendered people. As the Swedish representative on the Committee said at the time:

…sexual orientation had often been the motive for extrajudicial killings, and the deletion of the reference would amount to the Committee looking the other way concerning arbitrary executions based on sexual orientation.

Quite.

Fortunately, there has been a reaction to this draft resolution, led by the US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice. Now the UN has voted to drop the amendment and retain the reference to sexual orientation in the resolution against the unjustified killing of minority groups.

While the original reference still stands for the moment, it’s clear that those who wish to reverse progress will not be giving up in a hurry. Typical of them is Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the UN, Chitsaka Chipaziwa, who attacked the US amendment, saying there was no need to refer explicitly to sexual orientation.

“We will not have it foisted on us,” he said, according to Reuters. “We cannot accept this, especially if it entails accepting such practices as bestiality, paedophilia and those other practices many societies would find abhorrent in their value systems.

Yep, I’m sure that he and others of his ilk are only too happy to heap up strawmen and turn a blind eye to what happens in their countries. As Hilary Clinton is reported to have said:

The U.S. reintroduced the language to send an unequivocal message that “No one should be killed for who they are.”

“Sadly, many people around the world continue to be targeted and killed because of their sexual orientation,” she said. “These heinous crimes must be condemned and investigated wherever they occur.”

And for some of us, the struggle continues, with real and present danger.

I hope that the above title is somewhat of a rhetorical question. I would hope that, on balance, despite its many failings, the UN still counts for something in this sorry world.

However, when it gets down to a personal level, I find myself questioning whether the ideals in fact count for very much in the face of politics.

I read two weeks ago Paul Burston’s blog entry where he wrote that he sat down and wept at the news that of the United Nations panel’s decision to remove sexual orientation from an anti-execution resolution. As he said:

The resolution has contained a reference to lesbian and gay people since 1999. Today, it was announced that this has changed. Other groups are still covered, including those facing persecution on the grounds of religion. But not us.

According to Pink News, “the vast majority of countries in support of the change were African or Arabic” – ie, those countries with the worst records on human rights abuses against lesbians and gay men, countries where gay people are regularly stoned, flogged and publicly executed.

What surprised me is that I had not seen even a mention of this on any mainstream news web site (e.g. newspapers and the BBC), so I had hoped that Paul had been mistaken.

But no, it does in fact appear that this has occurred. Here’s the UN record of the meeting.

As William Crawley asks: Does the UN now support the execution of gays?

I take a little comfort from the fact that the UK’s Association of British Muslims has condemned the removal of the reference to sexual orientation in the resolution. That is a statement of support from what will seem a surprising group to many people.

I wrote yesterday that some of us are involved in a war that is not of our choosing. It now seems to me that there are more of us involved than I had at first appreciated.

World AIDS Day was on December 1st. I had the luxury of reflecting on lost friends, since it is my good fortune to be living in the Netherlands.

Some of us reflect on the fact that they are fighting in a war that is not of their making, and that the makers of that war are their fellow countrymen, who are in positions of political and religious power.

Brian Whitaker has an article in the Near East Quarterly describing the targeting of gay men in Iraq by vigilantes. It makes for sobering reading. Yet, at the same time, some of the absurdities that are resulting would be laughable, if it weren’t for the fact that their perpetrators wield guns and are only too prepared to use them:

The problem in post-Saddam Iraq, though, is that the official legal position counts for less than realities on the ground. The wave of “gay” killings was made possible by the breakdown of state control and the rise of local militias, some of them seeking to enforce their own interpretations of Islamic law. That resulted in people being killed for the most trivial of “sins” – among them barbers who gave customers “un-Islamic” haircuts. It reached a peak of absurdity when al-Qa‘eda elements in Iraq sought to impose “gender” segregation of vegetables. Claiming that tomatoes are feminine and cucumbers masculine, they argued that greengrocers should not place them next to each other, and that women should not buy or handle cucumbers.

Here’s another video response to the rising wave of anti-gay sentiment towards American LGBT teens. This time it’s from Google employees who are themselves LGBT.

I think that the testimony of “ordinary” people as opposed to “celebrities” makes a much more powerful message. And good for Google for standing behind this video.

A speech from the heart of Joel Burns, councilman in Fort Worth, Texas. He made it to adulthood. It would seem that today, in 21st Century America, it is becoming even more difficult for gay teens to escape being bullied.

(hat tip to PZ Myers)