IN +UGANDA NO HOMO BILL STALLS,,,,

+Kampala, @Uganda:

IN UGANDA NO HOMO BILL STALLS OVER SUDDEN DEATH OF OUTSPOKEN MP

The hate the gay people Uganda bill that was first introduced by MP (Member of Parliament) @David Bahati in 2003 has yet hit another huge huddle right before it was supposed to appear for debate on the floor of the Ugandan Parliament within the last few weeks. As you remember, last time we left off with Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, Honorable Rebecca Kadaga promising to pass the Anti-Homosexual bill as a Christmas present to all Ugandans. Well being that Christmas is only a few days away it will be interesting to see what happens.

 It is early in the morning here in Namirembe, a suburb of Uganda’s capital city Kampala. Growing up here I always thought that Namirembe Hill had the best view of Kampala city.

From my apartment widow I see sky rise buildings and all the elements of a capital city. If I mute my iTunes and  +Jay-Z stops rapping. I would hear the sounds of cars, motorcycles and no doubt a lot of people working. I am getting older now and becoming more of a TV person, especially the NEWS of wherever I am.  It is early December/2012, a few weeks ago. I am seating in my apartment chatting things up with my old friend Penny. I was mainly complaining about how one of my cousins seems to never have his story right and how he tells you a million things but none of them are true! As Penny and I talk, breaking news appeared on +NTV Uganda, +Frank Walusimbi, one of Uganda’s best newsman proceeded to say that a few days ago one of Uganda’s most outspoken MPs had died and it was by poison, she was health one moment and dead the other. Her family was going through the deepest pain accompanied by death especially sudden death. President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni appeared in public denying all talks of foul play in the death of Nebanda. As you can imagine the media had a big party with this one. Death as mysterious as always appeared to prove once again powerful. The dead MP was a big critic of the Uganda Government and its agenda.

Although she was part of the ruling (National Resistance Movement Party) NRM, she seemed to believe less in her party’s agenda to develop our country. Recently she had exchanged disagreements with the president in public concerning the government’s failure to provide sufficient health care in her constituency and in the whole country for that matter. After that she would die suddenly days later and everyone is wondering if that had anything to do with it. But on record the president has said not. Like many youth here in Kampala and all over the country I began to follow MP Nebanda when she became one of the biggest critics for “presidential-term-limits” in Uganda. She and other MPs were labeled by their own party leaders as rebel MPs mainly because they were against most of the party’s agenda.
The gang of these MPs has been very vocal in Uganda’s 9^th parliament in speaking against government corruption and amending the constitution to bring back presidential term limits. David Bahati, the biggest homophobe in the world was the last person to know where the dead MP was going and who she was with when she died according to her mother. With all this going on, the hate the gay people bill seems to be a challenge to pass because now the Ugandan Parliament has turned their attention on personal security and wonder if they are free to express their opinion publicly. It turns out that you may HATE gay people like David Bahati does but you cannot be immune to the jaws of death even if you believe you should kill a person for being GAY.

Nebanda will be missed, the media loved her, and she was only in her twenties like most of these MP here. May her soul rest in peace and we will look at the life she’s lived as a testimony to service for God and our country.

Uganda wants no HOMO!

UGANDA WANTS NO HOMO:   

It is June 2012: I am in Uganda. I am in Mukono District at the private home of The Rt. Rev. James William Ssebaggala, Bishop of Mukono Diocese. It is early in the morning. It is probably 8:30AM GMT +2 East Africa standard time…time passes and  I find myself in a huge waiting room; people are beginning to walk in and out the Bishop’s office. Mainly priests (some are women priests, but mainly men priests) and other diocese workers. I was the second person the Bishop saw that morning right after his morning devotions with his staff.  To meet him, I walked straight back to his office with my friend a local reverend in the diocese.  So after greetings and introductions I told the Bishop about my projects at my home church in Ssinda Village. He seemed impressed but I sensed he had seen many impressive things.  Time passed and I proved myself a great conversationalist, so the BISH and I began talking about life and all the things in it. His eyes grew huge when I mentioned that I attended an Episcopal branch of the Anglican Communion in the US. At that minute he began to ask me all these questions about the Episcopal Church in general…. “Oh, how they are ordaining women into BISHOPS and how they are willing to even bless GAY marriages.”  

When he got to the GAY marriage part, he went on and on, forever! I wanted to laugh but I had to keep a serious face and I wanted to be respectful even though on any other occasion in other places I would have a lot say. The general sense in the media is that Uganda has this very conservative homophobic culture. I do not find that to be true: but once again: somewhere I have read that “ignorance is bliss” and I agree. The bill against GAY people was first introduced in The August House, Uganda’s Parliament in 2009 and it was proposing jail time to death to all Ugandans caught in GAY acts even in their own beds, it did not matter, if caught they said, “you were going to face the gallows.”

Anyway after three years the bill has not passed mainly because it doesn’t make sense…let us face it, this is 2012 and not some pre- modern times, in fact it is post-modern times, modern was so 1989. Yes I will say Ugandans are very homophobic by nurture not by nature. Kinda like the white men were to niggers in the days of slavery. Hilter, also thought Jews were inferior. Those were pre-modern times my friends, which is where exactly many of Uganda’s elders are on this issue, like my friend the Bishop.  
Witch doctors in Ugandan are doing hideous and horrendous things to little boys and girls all in the name of tradition and they are not questioned by many laws. I would like to ask Speaker Rebbeca Kadaga, who wants to pass this bill as against GAY people  a “gift to Ugandans,”  for Christmas. Honorable, what is more immoral? A witch doctor that abducts the future of Uganda and traffics them as the Dutch did the niggers in the old days. Or is it a gay Ugandan man or women holding on to his or her lover tight or even making slow and sweet love to them. 

What is more immoral Honorable Speaker, a GAY Ugandan walking down the street or having more than one wife as some traditions in Uganda permit us to do. In many places in Uganda, polygamy is the law, but being GAY is a crime. Not even a sin but a crime, because see government cannot rebuke sin, as it does not rebuke the millions of witch doctor clinics that operate in the broad daylight.  YES they are times when we all believe that a man made law is superior to the eternal and divine law.  If being GAY is not divine or not an eternal incidence then one is saying that God did not create all things in HIS image, and that my friends, is crazy. But if God created all things even the California sheephead which is a kind of fish that changes from male to female and vise verse then he created GAY Ugandans and that my comrades cannot be questioned. And if being gay is a choice, are you saying that God did not create choices!