When It Comes to the Rainbow

An interesting (or, you know, terrifying) question of human rights has been raised recently that brings a new dimension to our travels abroad. Our flight will land in Uganda, and we will take an 8 hour bus ride down to Kigali. Uganda faces a number of challenges right now, including constant plots to overthrow the government and the kidnapping, training and amassing of "child soldiers" along the Northern Border (we will be ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE NEAR THERE, in case you're wondering). But everything's relative, and these problems combined with an otherwise stable government and not completely tanked economy make Uganda a fairly normal country in Africa. It is also a largely Christian nation (although as with most of the continent there is a significant Muslim population) and as a result, Western Christian leaders - particularly American Christian leaders - have sought to have an influence there. In the U.S., despite the recent success of the Catholic Bishops in pushing anti-reproductive rights legislation through Congress, we have at least a nominal separation of church and state, but Christian leaders are not hampered by such restrictions in most African countries. They have managed to make the political ENORMOUSLY personal. As a direct result of Western interference, a new bill will be voted on shortly in Uganda. A Times article explains its consequences better than I can:

"I am the gay doctor," the physician whispered to me, making sure nobody
around heard. He talked about the gay and lesbian couples who go to his office
to avoid ridicule in public hospitals. "They know they can trust me, and trust
is a big issue," he said. "There is the stigma of being gay, but also the stigma
of being [HIV] positive. They are such hidden communities. Nobody wants to deal
with their problems."
In a matter of weeks, the Ugandan doctor's admission
to TIME could land him in jail and his patients on death row. An
anti-homosexuality bill now before Uganda's Parliament would include some of the
harshest anti-gay regulations in the world. If the bill becomes law, the doctor,
who asked that his name not be published, could be prosecuted for "aiding and
abetting homosexuality." In one version of the bill, his sexually active
HIV-positive patients could be found guilty of practicing acts of "aggravated
homosexuality," a capital crime, according to the bill.
Thanks to a clause in the would-be law that punishes "failure to disclose
the offense," anybody who heard the doctor's conversation could be locked up for
failing to turn him in to the police. Even a reporter scribbling the doctor's
words could be found to have "promoted homosexuality," an act punishable by five
to seven years in prison. And were any of the Ugandans in the park to sleep with
someone of the same sex in another country, the law would mandate their
extradition to Uganda for prosecution. Only terrorists and traitors are
currently subject to extraterritorial jurisdiction under Ugandan law. Even murderers don't face that kind of judicial
reach.
(Update: Reports out of Kampala late Wednesday indicated that
the death penalty may be dropped from the final version of the bill, which may
come to a vote as early as two weeks from now.)

A lot of Ugandans don't think much of the bill either:

If Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill becomes law, it will be little short of state-sponsored "genocide" against the gay community, a prominent member of the Ugandan Anglican church said this week.
Canon Gideon Byamugisha said the bill, which recommends the death
penalty for anyone repeatedly convicted of having gay sex and prison sentences
for those who fail to report homosexual activity to the police, would breed
violence and intolerance through all levels of society.
"I believe that this bill [if passed into law] will be state-legislated genocide against a specific community of Ugandans, however few they may be," he said.

As for the evangelical leaders whose misinformation, falsehoods, misrepresentations and outright lies lead to the bill, they're rapidly back-tracking, finally condemning the bill after weeks of being hammered in the media. Here's a phenomenal Rachel Maddow interview with one lying scumbag whose book - and the lies it contains - are directly quoted in the bill as evidence for why harsh measures against gay men and women, including DEATH, are necessary to protect society: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-takes-cure-gays-author-richa#comment-1380818

All in all, it puts a different spin on the struggle of being a first-world resident in a developing nation. Rserving judgment is clearly important. You don't want to be the American who goes to Italy and complains that you can't get a Big Mac, and you sure as s#@! don't want to be the American who goes to AFRICA and passes judgment on their development. The whole point is to learn, to take an experience away and hopefully give something back while you're there. Here we have an instance where Western leaders were clearly manipulating an African goverment for their own bizarre gains; it's sad, it's appalling and it's terrifying. But where does that leave the question of judgment? Is it enough to say Westerners should never have interfered? What kind of agency does that give Uganda? If this happened in Ireland, no matter who influenced it, I would hold Ireland accountable for what it was doing to its people. Does Uganda deserve the same treatment?