- Uganda enacted a new LGBTQ law, and it has been met with fierce backlash.
- It is one of the strictest LGBTQ laws in the world, and it includes the death penalty.
Lawmakers in Uganda are facing fierce international backlash after President Yoweri Museveni imposed a strict new anti-LGBTQ law that includes the death penalty.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act, which President Joe Biden called a "tragic violation of universal human rights," imposes capital punishment for "serial offenders" and individuals who transmitting infections like HIV through same-sex relations. It also stipulates a 20-year sentence for "promoting" homosexuality.
It has been slammed by human rights groups, including the UN human rights body and Amnesty International.
LGBTQ rights activists in Uganda like Kasha Nabagesera believe "extremist" brands of Christianity stemming from the US are partly to blame.
American Evangelicals and "family values"
Uganda's opposition to the LGBTQ community can be traced back to colonial statutes that labeled homosexuality a crime, The Washington Post reported.
But according to Dr. Kapya Kaoma, an Anglican priest and researcher at Boston University who studies the relationship between US conservatism and African politics, American Evangelism has also played a crucial role, and he found it was "used to demonize, and, in fact, to kill" in the country.
Kaoma told Insider that following the collapse of the Soviet Union, "the US influence on Africa grew in the name of democracy, as did the American Christian fundamentalists having a hold on Africa."
The HIV epidemic exacerbated this at the time. Suddenly gay Africans were "presented as being responsible for HIV," while the Western LGBTQ movement was painted as "out to destroy Africa — and destroy the family," Kaoma said.
American missionaries and other Christian groups were then able to position themselves as "liberators" from the global LGBTQ movement, targeting Christian "family values" in the Christian-majority country, he added.
Since 2015, right-wing American evangelical Christian organizations that "share an anti-LGBTIQ, anti-abortion agenda" have now spent over $20 million in sub-Saharan Africa, according to an investigation by the Byline Times.
In a 2020 investigation, openDemocracy also found that some groups, such as the US Christian organization Family Watch International — defined as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — had even been "coaching" African politicians on sex education.
The group, aiming to ban "comprehensive sexuality education" in multiple African countries, per openDemocracy, objected to the word "coaching." Sharon Slater, the organization's president, told Insider that the organization had only "briefed high-ranking African politicians" on the topic.
"Western donor countries are pouring millions of dollars into pushing sexuality education that promotes promiscuity, even bestiality, and pedophilia to African kids, and it appears these donor countries and their media collaborators are out to destroy us for exposing their agenda," she said.
But she denied that "American Christian organizations or American organizations" impacted Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill. "This is a complete fabrication," she said.
African campaigners strongly disagree. Kaoma believes it should be seen as "a political movement by the Christian right to export their own values" in a country where "religion is highly respected."
"The wave of homophobia and transphobia in Uganda, and the region, has nothing to do with Ugandan or African values. It is a disguised campaign by American evangelicals through their local actors," Nicolas Opiyo, a Ugandan human rights lawyer and campaigner, told The Guardian in April.
"The wrong side of history"
There has been a strong international reaction to the "odious" law, with numerous campaigners and activists speaking out and mounting legal challenges.
"Hours after the president signed the unfortunate law, we filed our petition challenging its constitutionality," Ugandan activist Kasha Nabagesera told Insider.
"We have been ready all this time, so it was just a matter of time before we challenged it. Now let's see what happens with the courts. I'm hoping this time we will discuss the context of the law, unlike last time when we won just on a technicality," she said.
The inhumanity of the law should not be underestimated, Kaoma added, saying it wouldundoubtedlyy cause innocent people to be imprisoned or sentenced to death.
But despite the institutionalization of homophobia in the country, Kaoma says people should not lose hope.
"People will not give up the fight and will one day walk with pride on the streets of Kampala," Kaoma said, adding that "politicians are passing these laws because they are afraid, and they are cowards."
"They will be on the wrong side of history. I can assure you of that."