Lawmakers in Uganda are preparing to revisit a controversial bill, first proposed two years ago, which would prescribe the death penalty for gays in certain cases and impose steep penalties on others who do not report gays to the authorities.
The so-called “Death to Gays” bill was first advanced by Ugandan MP David Bahati in October of 2009, shortly after several anti-gay American evangelicals visited Uganda and told crowds that gays corrupt youths.
The conference was put together by the Ugandan group the Family Life Network, which purports to uphold “traditional family values.” The speakers included anti-gay writer and missionary Scott Lively–author of a book that purports to tell parents how to “gay-proof” their offspring–and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus international, an organization dedicated to the idea that gays can be “cured” through prayer and counseling.
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As a child in Uganda, John Bosco remembers hearing an old wives’ tale that if a man fell asleep in the sun and it crossed over him, he would wake up as a woman. “I used to try that as a kid,” says John now, some 30 years later. He sits at a table in a busy cafe across the road from the railway station in Southampton, his fingers playing with the handle of a glass of hot chocolate.
The Ugandan Parliament will reconvene next week to reconsider an anti-gay bill first proposed in 2009. Gay sex is already punishable by life in prison in the country, but the new bill would impose the death penalty on gay people convicted of having sex with minors or the disabled.
