Ugandan Pastors Launch Antigay Campaign at David Kato’s Grave

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Alex DiBranco

On Easter Sunday, Ugandan Pastors Solomon Male and Thomas Musoke launched their “Say No to Homosexuality” campaign outside the gravesite of slain gay rights activist David Kato–purposely selecting the spot to prevent it from becoming “a pilgrimage site for homosexuality.”

According to The Advocate, the pastors were joined by two men who claimed to be ex-gay, including Paul Kagada, who blames Kato for recruiting him into homosexuality through bribes and forced sodomy. Kagada is an associate of the well-known antigay pastor Martin Ssempa, previously the Africa coordinator for the U.S.-based antigay organization Family Watch International, a major proponent of the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality “Kill the Gays” Bill currently under consideration by Parliament.

God Loves Uganda, the documentary on U.S. evangelicals promoting homophobia in Africa, which features Political Research Associates’ researcher Rev. Kapya Kaoma, released a short video of Pastor Male lying about the health dangers from homosexuality.

Profile: Scott Lively

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Political Research Associates

scott_lively-250x300 On February 26, 2013, Boston Magazine published a lengthy article on “The Crusader: Anti-Gay Pastor Scott Lively Explores Run for Governor,” following Lively’s November 2012 announcement that he was considering a bid for Massachusetts governor. Who is Scott Lively?

Lively currently faces a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), for the persecution of LGBTQ persons in Uganda. In early 2009, along with other prominent antigay activists, such as Don Schmierer of Exodus International, an ex-gay organization, and Caleb Lee Brundidge of Extreme Prophetic Ministries, Lively presented at an anti-homosexuality conference in Uganda. Given the already tense relations in the country over issues of homosexuality, the event helped to ignite outbursts of violence and discrimination against individuals accused of being gay, including the 2009 introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality or “Kill the Gays” Bill introducing the death penalty for homosexual acts (which has now been resurrected). Lively says he is known as the “Father of the Ugandan Pro-Family Movement.”

Lively has assisted in founding organizations in the U.S. and abroad dedicated to furthering his extreme antigay agenda. Lively is founder and president of Abiding Truth Ministries, which maintains the website Defend the Family; founder of ATM’s Pro-Family Law Center; and former state director of the American Family Association of CA. The Pro Family Charitable Trust, which donates money to antigay organizations, is another ATM offshoot. Lively has also been a cofounder and American envoy for the virulently antigay Eastern European hate group Watchmen on the Walls. He resides and runs a Christian coffee house in Springfield, MA.

In October 2012, leading up to his gubernatorial announcement, Lively launched the King Josiah Project, “to begin challenging movements and ideologies in Massachusetts which he perceives as being most responsible for the moral and economic degeneration of Springfield and the state. These include in order of destructiveness: The abortion industry, the homosexual movement, the public education system, corrupt elements in state government, and a broken social welfare system that breeds dependency instead of rebuilding lives.” Read More →

Who’s Colonialist?
African Anti-Gay Politics In The Global Discourse

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Kapya Kaoma

Uganda’s Rolling Stone newspaper printed photos and personal information about what it called “Top Homos.” Subheadings read, “We Shall Recruit 1,000,000 Innocent Kids by 2012,” and, “Parents Now Face Heart-Breaks as Homos Raid Schools.” Photo Credit: AP/© AP

In August 2010, more than 400 African Anglican Bishops gathered in Entebbe, Uganda, for their second All-Africa Bishops Conference, which attracted global media attention because of the debates on LGBT rights. Bishops from Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya used the conference as an opportunity to speak out in favor of criminalizing homosexuality. Their anti-gay statements gave new life to Uganda’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would mandate the imprisoning and in some cases the execution of homosexuals. The bill was introduced into the Ugandan Parliament in 2009 after a seminar in March of that year in Kampala called Exposing the Homosexual Agenda, led by U.S. religious conservatives such as Scott Lively, a Holocaust revisionist who argues that LGBT-rights movements are inherently fascistic, and Don Schmierer, the director of the Exodus Institute, which claims to convert lesbians and gay men to heterosexuality. Henry Orombi, a friend of Rick Warren, the well-known pastor of the Saddleback megachurch in Orange County, California, is reported to have told the conference, “Homosexuality is evil, abnormal, and unnatural as per the Bible. It is a culturally unacceptable practice. Although there is a lot of pressure [from the West], we cannot turn our hands to support it.”¹ Nevertheless, two African provinces, or districts, at the conference distanced themselves from such attacks: the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and the Church of the Province of Central Africa. They issued a counterstatement saying, “The majority of the provinces at this conference are being ambushed by an agenda that is contrary to the beliefs and practices of our various provinces.”² Downplaying the counterstatement, the Ugandan media, which often presents Africans as united in their denunciation of LGBT people, predicted that the bishops’ voices would help pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.³