More About the Ugandan Bill

The Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill debate proceeds apace, both within and without the country itself.

This editorial from Sylvia Tamale of Makerere University provides some helpful background information on Uganda's longstanding criminalization of homosexual behavior as well as more evidence that Ugandans are not of one mind on this issue. From a US, conservative-Christian perspective, Warren Throckmorton writes this rather eloquent editorial posing the cliched-but-compelling question, What Would Jesus Do? The Facebook pages, both anti-Bill and pro-Bill, continue to garner members.

From the comments and from the text of the bill itself, the mentality behind the legislation appears to view homosexuality (primarily male homosexuality) as an always coercive violation of another person. Several of the Ugandan commentators ask perplexedly why Western Christians would deny them the right to criminalize an offense they consider to be as awful as rape or molestation. The idea that any male could be homosexual and enjoy consensual sexual contact with another homosexual male seems well-nigh unthinkable. Other arguments for the bill cite nature, reasoning that since sex is of course for procreation, homosexuality is contrary to nature itself.

Christian groups, both conservative and otherwise, both from Africa and from abroad, continue to issue denouncements of the bill, urging Ugandan Christians to reconsider their support for its draconian measures. Several pastors from the Church of Uganda have in fact recommended that the death penalty clause be removed, though many still support the life imprisonment clauses.

Disturbing sentiments such as the latter from some Ugandan Christian leaders ("don't kill them, but do lock them away forever") highlight the tensions emerging in global Christianity as Western denominations encounter the explosion of members in developing nations. In the Anglican and United Methodist Churches, for example, the influence of African members have breathed new life into the conservative wings of those denomination, as they almost uniformly take extremely conservative stands on issues such as sexuality and the role of women in ministry.

In the General Conferences of the UMC (i.e., the once-every-four-years meeting of representatives from the entire denomination) I've been to, the African delegations played a particularly important role in debates about GLBT issues. Their testimonies and arguments draw special attention--one might even say deference--from the US members who are keenly aware of the need for conscientious fellowship with overseas brothers and sisters.

Distressingly from my perspective, statements about GLBT issues by African delegates often mirrored the exasperated, why-is-this-even-up-for-debate tones of the Ugandan blog commentators. Pleas by various US-based delegates for their overseas brethren to extend to US congregations the same degree of cultural considerations (e.g., realize what it means to be a pastor in San Francisco) that the brethren themselves enjoy (non-US Conferences have a greater degree of flexibility in following UMC Discipline than US Conferences do) largely fell on deaf ears. The GLBT issue, in the arguments I heard from several African delegates, is an all-or-nothing litmus test of Christianity. That the church would even consider the possibility of, say, ordaining an openly gay or lesbian person is evidence of how decadent the American church has become. Of course, such anti-GLBT sentiments jibed perfectly with those of the more conservative sectors of the US delegation, who were for once happy to be the advocates of diversity within the church.

US conservatives in the Anglican Communion have similarly reached out to African Anglican Bishops as a way to disassociate themselves with the US Episcopal Church, creating the novel situation of African missionary outposts in the US. With these African Anglicans, US conservatives find a church home that conforms to their beliefs about sexuality (heteros only, please) and female ordination (none of that, please).

I am curious, then, to see how United Methodist and Anglican clergy in and around Uganda feel about this bill. I spoke yesterday of "intervention." As I hope was clear, I do not see that the US has any real authority to intervene in Uganda's internal affairs.

As a Christian living in communion with Ugandan Christians, however--more, as a Methodist, I feel a different kind of intervention is possible and appropriate. While I am skeptical that a Facebook page against the Bill can exert much persuasive power, I support overtures by people like Throckmorton that attempt to meet pro-Bill Ugandan Christians on their own ground.

I've noted that some more liberal GLBT advocacy groups have argued that various conservative and (especially) ex-gay ministries bear much of the blame for the Ugandan bill to begin with and that such ministries have been slow or tepid in their response. Though I have considerable qualms about ex-gay ministries (a label, I should note, that many such ministries do not embrace), I do not see such criticisms as entirely fair. Uganda, it seems to me, did not require the special intervention of a handful of US ministers over the summer to suddenly decide to prosecute homosexuality. Moreover, as much as I may disagree with the pathologization of homosexuality, the bill's provisions convince me that seeing GLBT people as people in need of prayer or treatment is preferable to seeing them as rapists or (as one facebook commentator put it) "sewage."

Randy Thomas of Exodus International (the premiere "ex-gay" ministry) was quoted on one anti-ex-gay blog: "It isn’t going to be a gay activist yelling at the Ugandan government that will actually get our ssa [same-sex-attracted] brothers and sisters out of jail. It will be people like me pleading with these leaders to recognize the Christ-likeness inherent in respecting self-determination and the dignity of every soul that draws breath." (quoted on this page). I have to admit that Thomas has a point. Reading the conservative commentators on Throckmorton's blog doing their darndest to make a reasoned, Biblically sound argument against the bill reinforced Thomas's point: if the anti-gay conservative Christians in Uganda are going to change, it will likely be from people like Thomas, Throckmorton, and others.

That reality, in turn, forces me to rethink how I position myself in relation to such people.

Part of what makes this whole situation so murky is how it reformats the topography of faith-based culture wars. As the century progresses, conservatives in the US are likely to find, I think, that what counts as "conservative" or "traditional Christian" here in the States differs quite a bit from what is meant by those same terms in Africa. Indeed, Christianity itself takes different forms in various parts of the global south, where Pentecostal traditions of speaking in tongues, faith healing, ecstatic worship styles, and a much more strictly conservative theology seem to enjoy the most robust growth rates.

I am curious, then, to see how this debate turns out.

More tomorrow,

JF

PS: I am curious about the stance of the United Methodist Bishop of the East African Annual Conference, Daniel Wandabula. Anyone know?