As Ugandan MP David Bahati spearheads a campaign around the adoption of the homophobic 'Bahati's bill', Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and Frank Mugisha call for an unwavering rejection of a piece of legislation entirely against the interests of wider Ugandan society. With strong suspicions of Bahati's financial backing by extreme-right Christian groups in the US, the bill seeks not only to establish draconian punishments for homosexual acts but also to actively encourage Ugandans to snoop on one ...read more
As Ugandan MP David Bahati spearheads a campaign around the adoption of the homophobic 'Bahati's bill', Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and Frank Mugisha call for an unwavering rejection of a piece of legislation entirely against the interests of wider Ugandan society. With strong suspicions of Bahati's financial backing by extreme-right Christian groups in the US, the bill seeks not only to establish draconian punishments for homosexual acts but also to actively encourage Ugandans to snoop on one another indefinitely for the supposed good of the nation. If homophobes like Bahati were really worried about 'protect[ing] the traditional family', Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and Mugisha argue, they'd concern themselves with tackling the conditions keeping so many Ugandans in poverty, rather than making scapegoats of homosexual people. The authors conclude that with an election approaching in 2011, the momentum behind the bill smacks of a none-too-subtle attempt to divert attention away from Uganda's true issues.
