Saturday, June 5, 2010

Ssempa (and 'eat the poo poo'), Bahati and some Allies

Martin Ssempa and his 'eat the poo poo' is making a hit on the net.

A great hit, apparently. Good for him....! That kind of hate peddling is best countered by the ridicule that he is receiving. Sadly, in Uganda, we are almost completely unable to watch these interesting videos.... They would do much to enliven life. Ha! Going viral indeed!

If you really want to read up on Ssempa's wave of popularity on the web, with the 'eat the poo poo' hit, why, just follow this link. Eat the poo poo!!!!!

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David Bahati claimed on the 'Missionaries of Hate' documentary extended interview that there are many 'American Christians' or something like that who were in support of the Bahati Bill. But that they were fearful of doing that support in public.

I do know that it is a matter of course that there were American supporters. But so many of the pentecostals were bailing, that I kind of thought he may be overstating that support. Turns out that I was wrong.
You see, in the US Congress, a couple of resolutions were introduced to condemn the Bahati Bill in Uganda. They had bi-partisan support. And, the one from the Senate passed. Not so the one in the House, which apparently bogged down in committee.

Turns out there are people who were lobbying against the resolution, in one way or another. This story broke yesterday, and I was intrigued. An organisation called the Family Research Council, which is decidedly anti-gay, paid a cool 25,000 USD to lobby for their point of view.

I am no American. Just an observer from afar.... but it intrigued me because these guys actually put their money where they believed their hearts believed they should be. And that is decidedly to support the Bahati Bill, in one way or another, as they could. Kind of sober. We can all try to argue that the Ssempa's of this world are an isolated artefact of human life. But, fact is, they are there, they are many, and they are decidedly more pro-hate than they are pro-love, whatever their pretences are. Professional Christians, I tend to call them. Of course their obfuscation and confusion of the point (its called spin?) leaves us with only the fact that they did give 25k USD to do something.... and that is left to our imagination. Yes, Bahati, you do have some not so secret admirers.

Here are more details about that lobbying effort. From the BoxTurtleBulletin, 1, 2, 3, and the Throckmorton blog. And, an article about it from CBS News.

Well, maybe I should just let my incredulity go..... Time for naivety was so yesterday!

Its a beautiful sunny day in Kampala, promising some rain, or a drizzle from the lake.

Have a great day


gug

5 comments:

FY said...

The Family Research Council is a powerful right-wing anti-gay group, co-founded by Psychologist and Baptist Minister George Alan "lift my luggage" Rekers.

The Family Research Council had revenue of US$14 million in 2007-08, and assets worth US$5.5 million (see lines 12 and 59).
http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/521/521792772/521792772_200809_990.pdf

In addition, Family Research Council Action (the FRC's lobby group) had revenue of US$2 million in 2007-08, and assets worth US5100,000 (see lines 12 and 59).
http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/521/521805562/521805562_200809_990O.pdf

There's a lot of money to be made promoting the anti-gay right-wing agenda!

FY said...

If you want to find out the finances and expenditures of most US charities and political action committees, go to:

http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990s/990search/esearch.php

Karen said...

FY
Actually it might be closer to the mark to say that there is a lot of money to be lost when society is no longer so willing to condemn gay rights.

FY said...

Okay, now that I'm started...

While Ugandan anti-gays sow panic about the "powerful" international gay movement invading Uganda, the reality is that the David and Goliath comparison has always run the opposite way, massively.

Based on the latest filings at the Foundation Center, the three US groups represented at the infamous March 2009 conference (Exodus International, International Healing Foundation Inc. and Abiding Truth Ministries) had annual revenues totalling about US$1.4 M and net assets totalling about US$800,000.
http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/521/521413470/521413470_200812_990.pdf
http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/911/911495358/911495358_200812_990.pdf
http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/330/330774765/330774765_200712_990.pdf

And these groups are only the tip of the iceberg of the anti-LGBT movement in Uganda; the US and Ugandan churches and religious radio and TV networks are far bigger.

The LGBT groups are puny by comparison. Scott Lively's personal compensation from Abiding Truth Ministries alone, US$45,000 for 2007, probably exceeded the income of all the LGBT groups in Uganda combined.

This massive power imbalance is repeated at the international level. The LGBT movement's biggest international group, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, had a total revenue of US$1.7 M and net assets of US$991,000 for 2008.
http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/943/943139952/943139952_200806_990.pdf

Again, the biggest anti-LGBT groups internationally are the Catholic and other churches, for which I don't have figures. But, to get an idea of the disparity, look at a single US anti-LGBT group, Focus on the Family, which had a total revenue of US$145.2 M and net assets of $75.2 M in 2008. And these figures exclude its political action committee in the US and its numerous branches in foreign countries.
http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/200/200960855/200960855_200809_990O.pdf

It's a miracle that the LGBT movement has even survived this long, much less had major victories in a few countries.

We're tough, I guess. If this were a movie, we'd be Stallone or Schwarzenegger.

FY said...

This looks like the complete "Missionaries of Hate" show. It is 45 minutes, and is available outside the USA, unlike Hulu:
http://current.com/shows/vanguard/92468669_missionaries-of-hate.htm

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