Interventions and the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill

I've been thinking about the bystander issue in relation to GLBT issues lately largely because of this bill, which was proposed in Uganda.

The bill (which seems to be known in various internet debates by both supporters and opponents as Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill), at least in current drafts, essentially defines homosexuality as a crime punishable by life imprisonment or even execution. Also criminalized in the bill are offenses like "aiding and abetting homosexuality" or "conspiracy to engage in homosexuality," each punishable by a sentence of seven years in prison.

The proposed bill, not surprisingly, has drawn sharp criticism from those in the GLBT rights community. Indeed, even conservative Christian groups are raising protests against the bill (see this Facebook page, for example, or this statement from Rick Warren). The Obama administration has condemned the bill, as have other countries and human rights organizations.

Uganda, never a go-to locale for GLBT rights, has largely rejected what it sees as outside attempts to meddle in its affairs. Supporters of the bill have started their own Facebook group, even as a number of Ugandans--including many Christian groups and speakers--have spoken out against the bill.

Complicating this issue, of course, is the fact that a number of ex-gay ministers had recently visited Uganda to hold a mini-conference regarding ministry to and help for homosexual people (i.e., get them to stop living as homosexual people, convince them to see their sexuality as a corruption or disorder, etc.). I need to do more research on this, but least some of the ministers supporting the bill in Uganda appear to be drawing on arguments used by these ex-gay speakers. Several in the "ex-ex-gay" movement who watchdog and criticize ex-gay organizations, have laid the blame for Uganda's current bill at the feet of ex-gay ministries. The ex-gay ministries themselves, of course, take offense at this allegation, firing back with posts and protests of their own.

For a taste of the depth of the debate from a number of sides, I recommend this posting on a blog by Warren Throckmorton, a conservative Christian psychology professor who has been very active in organizing US-based opposition to the bill (he founded the anti-bill Facebook page I linked above). This post, which relates a statement by Ugandan ministers and groups opposed to the bill, fascinates me largely for its ongoing (as of this writing) comments section. There you can read posts from a surprisingly wide spectrum of viewpoints, from ex-gays to gay-affirmative Christians and everything in between.

Particularly striking are comments from a poster who identifies himself (I believe it's a himself) as a Ugandan national very much in favor of the bill. In addition to lambasting the other posters for meddling in Uganda's own affairs, the poster expresses flat disbelief that anyone who calls herself a Christian could possibly be against the legislation.

The comments from that poster and from others provoke a startling realization about just how radically apart we who exist in the global body of Christ can be. I write often of fundamental disagreements between believers, but here is a fundamental disagreement of an order rarely seen in present-day US contexts. Indeed, the example of the bill's supporters (which would no doubt include many non-Ugandan Christians such as Fred Phelps) contrasts starkly with most of the pro-family/anti-gay/ex-gay movements here. Compared to people who see homosexuality as worse than murder and homosexuals as richly deserving of death, ex-gay ministries look positively liberal.

Mucking up all of these debates, of course, is the postcolonial context of massive, long-term Western and European interventions into African cultures. Indeed, "interventions" of various sorts (economic, military, governmental, cultural, religious), many of which cloak themselves with the best of intentions, have long defined the West's approach to African affairs, casting "the West" and "Africa" as characters in an old fashioned melodrama. In more recent narratives, the West becomes "intervener"--blessed or tasked with the power (ability, maturity, moral superiority) necessary to save the poor, benighted, self-defeating African nations (who cannot or will not help themselves). Centuries of such unequal roleplay contaminate present-day relations, making the question I've asked in the last few days--how and when to intervene--almost impossible to answer.

That vexed and vexing relationship, however, promises to grow only more pressing throughout this century as the locus of energy for Christianity shifts to the global south. Issues like the current Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill--itself redolent with conflicting histories of Christian interventions and counter-interventions--presage similar conflicts yet to come.

This is already apparent in the United Methodist Church.

More tomorrow,

JF