IGF CultureWatch

I feel a bit guilty about focusing on Adam Lambert and music and marriage and other local issues when there is a real threat to gay rights in Uganda. "Gay rights" sounds almost quaint in this context, given that the proposed law is the closest thing I've seen in my lifetime to the Nuremberg Laws.

American bloggers seem to have coalesced around calling it the "Kill Gays" bill, and I obviously agree that if it were enacted, it would ultimately lead to that. In its present version, the death penalty would apply to "aggravated homosexuality," which includes sex with a minor or a disability, or someone with AIDS.

This is bad enough. But by focusing on the limited circumstances in which the law would impose state-sanctioned death, I think we run the risk of missing the far broader and more dangerous part of the text: the part that establishes "The offence of homosexuality."

That was implicit in America's ancient sodomy laws, which were sometimes no more specific than prohibiting "the crime against nature." That could be any of a million things, but most people understood it to be homosexuality in some form. Those laws are now a thing of the past, both here and in other civilized nations.

Uganda is determined to uncivilize itself and head straight into a new Dark Age by formally and explicitly criminalizing an offense they call homosexuality. In fact, the bill, itself, says that current law is defective because it ". . .has no comprehensive provision catering for [sic] anti homosexuality."

The bill's single-minded focus on punishing homosexuality is breathtaking. The mere intention to commit homosexuality will expose the offender to life imprisonment. The law also prohibits and punishes speaking publicly in favor of gay rights in any form. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a progressive dream by comparison.

But even that is not enough for this thuggish piece of aggression. Anyone who even knows about someone who is gay has an obligation to turn them in - whether it's a family member, a dear friend or a stranger. Failure to do that is also a punishable offense.

All of this arises from the premise that homosexuality, by itself, is an "offence." Once that is established in the law, everything else flows from it. The power of the state to protect citizens from danger is called into play in all its majesty and force, up to and including making sure that citizens who are not themselves homosexual must report to the authorities any real or suspected violations. This is how genocides start.

Calling the bill "retrograde" seems wildly inadequate. The modern world has come so far on gay equality, and this detestable and gruesome scheme looks like a sick joke.

But it is not. Its proponents have put it forward in all seriousness. Its vile assumptions and loathsome, inevitable consequences deserve to be condemned explicitly. Box Turtle Bulletin has done a thorough and excellent job of covering this story, and its archives are a primary source for anyone who is interested.