Re: Uganda passes a law making it a crime to identify as LGBTQ

[Woofen Vegan]

jmcquown <jmcq...@lycos.net> wrote in
news:1663a52268882ec2$2$1632556$4036...@news.newsgroupdirect.com:

> On 2/13/2021 3:14 PM, Pamela wrote:
>> Is your "Home" group talk.politics.guns ?
>>
> Nothing but assholes in that group.
>
> Jill

But you have no problem with abattoir workers who kill hundreds of
thousands of helpless animals to eat every day. Talk about assholes.

KAMPALA, March 21 (Reuters) - Uganda's parliament passed a law on Tuesday
making it a crime to identify as LGBTQ, handing authorities broad powers
to target gay Ugandans who already face legal discrimination and mob
violence.

More than 30 African countries, including Uganda, already ban same-sex
relations. The new law appears to be the first to outlaw merely
identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ),
according to rights group Human Rights Watch.

Supporters of the new law say it is needed to punish a broader array of
LGBTQ activities, which they say threaten traditional values in the
conservative and religious East African nation.

In addition to same-sex intercourse, the law bans promoting and abetting
homosexuality as well as conspiracy to engage in homosexuality.

Violations under the law draw severe penalties, including death for so-
called aggravated homosexuality and life in prison for gay sex. Aggravated
homosexuality involves gay sex with people under the age of 18 or when the
perpetrator is HIV positive, among other categories, according to the law.

"Our creator God is happy (about) what is happening ... I support the bill
to protect the future of our children," lawmaker David Bahati said during
debate on the bill.

"This is about the sovereignty of our nation, nobody should blackmail us,
nobody should intimidate us."

The legislation will be sent to President Yoweri Museveni to be signed
into law.

Frank Mugisha, a prominent Ugandan LGBTQ activist denounced the
legislation as draconian.

"This law is very extreme and draconian ... it criminalises being an LGBTQ
person, but also they are trying to erase the entire existence of any
LGBTQ Ugandan," he said.

Museveni has not commented on the current proposal but he has long opposed
LGBTQ rights and signed an anti-LGBTQ law in 2013 that Western countries
condemned before a domestic court struck it down on procedural grounds.

In recent weeks, Uganda authorities have cracked down on LGBTQ people
after religious leaders and politicians alleged students were being
recruited into homosexuality in schools.

This month, authorities arrested a secondary school teacher in the eastern
district of Jinja over accusations of "grooming of young girls into
unnatural sex practices".

She was subsequently charged with gross indecency and is in prison
awaiting trial.

The police said on Monday they had arrested six people accused of running
a network that was "actively involved in the grooming of young boys into
acts of sodomy".

<https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/uganda-passes-bill-banning-
identifying-lgbtq-2023-03-21/>