Tolerance for Obama goes only one way

According to a recent statement from the White House, President Obama “strongly opposes efforts, such as the draft law pending in Uganda that would criminalize homosexuality and move against the tide of history” (Is “tide” the most appropriate word, since ocean tides are beyond man’s control? History is made by man, for better or for worse).

Is this the same Obama who, when recently in China, murmured some generalities about human rights, in a country where a one-child policy has murdered millions of babies and freedom of expression is tightly controlled? Or is interference in and action on the affairs of other nations selective? Keep quiet on China, but bully the little fellows like Uganda, and his father’s homeland Kenya because of its corruption.

Hillary Clinton, in a speech at Georgetown University on Monday, December 14, with reference to Uganda’s proposed bill, said: “Law should not become an instrument of oppression.” We all agree. What about the forcible manner in which abortion laws are enacted not only in China but in the whole Western world, including the United States, one of the first countries to decriminalize the practice? Didn’t the same Ms Clinton shed tears over the rape victims in Goma, eastern Congo, or was she only allowed to meet the girls and women who were raped, and not the men and boys? Wasn’t it a Clinton administration that said nothing during the Rwandan genocide, and made a lame apology afterwards at a brief stopover at Kigali airport?

Anglican leader, Rowan Williams, was quoted in a British newspaper, Daily Telegraph, as saying: “Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Communion has said in recent decades”. What the Anglican Communion has said about this in recent decades has split Anglicanism down the middle, so that it is no longer a “communion”.

It is true that the legislation is of “a shocking severity” and will hopefully be toned down in the final draft. In a country like Uganda, however, there are few alternative penalties for “aggravated” homosexual acts, such as those with minors, handicapped people or to spread the AIDS virus –as opposed to having a homosexual disposition The only alternative is putting offenders into already overcrowded prison cells, since homosexual rehabilitation is unavailable, because unknown in Africa. Williams said further: “Apart from invoking the death penalty, it makes pastoral care impossible – it seeks to turn pastors into informers.” This part of the Bill needs clarifying too, although in the case of Catholic priests, the sacramental seal is guaranteed.

A South African newspaper, the Sunday Times, says that the “bill would legalize the murder of citizens merely for being who they are. It will encourage hatred and intolerance. It will drive wedges through families by inducing members to spy on each other”. The Sunday Times seems to know little about how the rest of Africa operates. There will be no spying whether the Bill is passed or defeated. In the villages defilers are already beaten, sometimes to death, and given the same treatment as witches. Nor intolerance; Africans are among the most tolerant and welcoming of peoples, but there is a limit.

But these inconsistencies are leading to some observant people here asking: “Who is really behind all this?” Is it the media-discredited “religious right” in the US who are fuelling the Bill, as some mainstream media maintain? Namely that PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief) funds are being used to promote the Bill. And that Uganda’s Family Life Network, run by a Pentecostal pastor, has received money from the UN-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria?

And that the same group held a 3-day conference in March this year on homosexuality and invited Scott Lively, Don Schmierer and Caleb Lee Brundidge to speak against the anti-gay movement, proposing pastoral methods to assist homosexually-inclined people? Further, that the proposed Bill has the strong backing of the conservative group, The Family, which has sent US senators and representatives abroad to promote anti-gay and anti-abortion policies; and that the proposer of the Bill, David Bahati, the Ugandan minister of Ethics and Integrity, Nsaba Buturo, and President Museveni himself belong to the group?

Is there another side to the story, which the mainstream media are overlooking?

President Obama’s negotiators at the United Nations have made anti-family statements, including signing a French-Dutch declaration that seeks to make homosexuals a specially protected class at the expense of religious freedom. Last month, November 2009, a committee of human rights experts in Europe discussed a draft recommendation on measures to “combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity to respect human rights to gays, lesbians, transgender persons and to promote tolerance towards them”. They listed documents from European and UN sources which it claims “recognize sexual orientation as a prohibited area of discrimination.”

The French-Dutch declaration met huge opposition at the General Assembly; Russia, Belarus and the Holy See issued counter-statements. Its proposal that the 47 member states of the Council of Europe should ensure that homosexuals have the right to adopt, access to reproductive treatment like IVF (in-vitro fertilization) and gender reassignment surgery, as well as give full legal recognition to such gender reassignment. The Council of Europe, larger and older than the European Union, is considered the chief protector and promoter of human rights in Europe.

The November draft made this provision: “neither culture, tradition nor religious values, nor the rules of a “dominant culture” can be invoked to justify hate speech or any other form of discrimination, including on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity”. Many Christians, the Catholic Church and the Evangelicals particularly, and Moslems fear that this could inhibit their right to speak on the immorality of homosexual acts, as they might be accused of inciting intolerance. The Quebec Government has already classified such speech as homophobic, the same government that promotes the acceptability of same-sex marriage and homosexual behavior in primary schools, even private ones.

How far does tolerance go? Is it going to work mainly one way, which is towards people with homosexual tendencies –and their acts-, but not to the rights the major faiths have to spread their traditional teachings, all of which condemn homosexual ACTS as immoral?

Martyn Drakard is a freelancer who covers Uganda and Kenya.