Death to the Gay

There is a very interesting article on the Throckmorton blog on some of the good old American right religious leaders interaction with our good old Ugandan homophobes. It is worth reading, really worth reading. Probably, you should also read the previous post concerning the Lou Engle visit to Uganda. Oh, the topic, same old stuff. Bahati, Lou Engel, and a new beast of horror, one that had crossed my horizon, but had failed to prick my interest. I guess he really should be a person that I should pay more attention to. He is Apostle /Bishop Julius Oyet. They are all good, Pentecostal, charismatic Christians.

No, I am not glossing over the apology which was no apology from Engel. Nor am I really surprised that American right Christians seem to say something else in Africa, and something else when they are called to account in the US. Nor am I offering any new insight in Bahati the man who wants death or imprisonment for gay Ugandans. But, in Julius Oyet is another Martin Ssempa. A malignant, ignorant hatred that, though quieter, is as repulsive and deadly. The descriptions are apt.

Julius Oyet is anti-gay. Of course, every good Ugandan Christian is by definition anti-gay (sorry, good Ugandan Christians)

And, does he really know exactly what homosexuality is? Well, not realy, concluded Author Jeff Sharlett of the book The Family- an expose of that right wing Christian lobby group.

I rode with Bishop Oyet and Bahati in Bahati’s car to the Sheraton hotel, where I interviewed Oyet for about 45 minutes, recorded. I’ll be writing about what I learned in Kampala in my forthcoming book,….

6. Oyet seems to be quite confused about what homosexuality actually is. After he explained that he was engaged in spiritual warfare with homosexuality, I asked whether he believed homosexuals are demonically possessed.

Oyet: “Um, because it is abnormal. It is abnormal sex, you would say yes. You would say yes. Because one drives you to that. Because homosexuals, they would now eat their own feces. They would eat their own waste. That is what they call golden shower where you lick the anus of someone. Isn’t that demonic?”

Uh!

Remind you of someone? Pastor Doctor Martin ‘eat da poo poo’ Ssempa. The same ignorance, and crowning of the ignorance with a lack of desire to know anything that is positive about the people, human beings that they vilify. [chuckle…. to me, sex is a very positive thing to embrace, not to run away from. Ha ha!]

But, Julius Oyet, this good Christian leader, a Pentecostal Bishop, does come up with some good Christian justification for the death penalty for me in Uganda.

Here’s Oyet on the death penalty: “There is not the death penalty at the end for everybody. There is the death penalty at the end for aggravated homosexuality.”….

His rationale for the death penalty? “If the Bible supports the death penalty which is true and then you call yourself a Christian nation, listen. If I would be killed because I am dying scripturally I can repent to God before I am killed but [if] I am [eliminated] from the Earth that’s ok… if the victim confesses or repents, we can waive it off. Something like that…. In my view, homosexuals should be grateful. But instead they are not. Why I’m saying they should be grateful is because in Ugandan culture if you go and rob someone, if you go and rape a child and people find you, they will kill you.”

If you need any reminders, the death penalty under that bill would be my punishment if I had sex when I am HIV positive, if my partner was disabled in anyway, if I was a repeat offender (uhhhh!, that is why I do have sex with my partner as often as I can. repeat offender, of course!)- and of course; having a below 18 partner, and coercing someone to have sex with me.

I hated this conclusion from the author. I really hated it. But, I cannot say that his observation about the anti-gay activists of Uganda was false. Here it is, in bold

His rationale for the death penalty? “If the Bible supports the death penalty which is true and then you call yourself a Christian nation, listen. If I would be killed because I am dying scripturally I can repent to God before I am killed but [if] I am [eliminated] from the Earth that’s ok… if the victim confesses or repents, we can waive it off. Something like that…. In my view, homosexuals should be grateful. But instead they are not. Why I’m saying they should be grateful is because in Ugandan culture if you go and rob someone, if you go and rape a child and people find you, they will kill you.” [Here he is echoing a point made to me by many leaders of the anti-gay movement -- that the bill is for the benefit of the gays in that it protects them from mob justice, replacing it with the rule of law and a death penalty they can appeal.]

Truth, it makes me want to throw up.

But my nauseated repulsion cannot deny the fact that my countrymates, and very good, upstanding, Ugandans, morally upright, consider that, me as a gay Ugandan am such a freak that I deserve death. Lynching, and if it can be sanctified legally, well, all the better.

Gosh…!

Yeah, and he equated opposition to the anti-homosexuality bill as opposition to God. Really! In truth, with such stellar Christian witness...., any reason for me to express why I would rather not be loved by such solid and good christians?

gug