(New York, NY) - The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and the Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) issued a joint statement condemning a seminar intended to attack the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Uganda.


 

Using religion as a cover, a three-day seminar opened on Thursday, Mar 5, 2009, in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, and featured Americans known in the U.S. for their dehumanizing of LGBT people and supporting the belief that homosexuality is curable. In a press release, Hoosein Alizadeh, communications director for IGLHRC said that the speakers included Scott Lively, Don Schmierer, and Caleb Lee Brundidge. Alizadeh said that Brundidge is affiliated with the Extreme Prophetic Ministry in Phoenix, AZ, Schmierer is on the board of the "ex-gay" organization, Exodus International, and Lively is well known for his belief that the Nazi holocaust never happened. According to Cary Alan Johnson, IGLHRC's newly installed executive director, the American religious right is finally showing its hand and revealing the depth of its support for homophobia in Africa. "This seminar will increase violence and other human rights abuses against LGBT people, women and anyone who doesn't conform to gender norms. This newest form of colonialism is deplorable and must be stopped," said Johnson. The seminar was hosted by the Family Life Network (FLN), a Ugandan non-governmental organization started in 2002 that claims to be committed to restoring Ugandan family values and morals, opposes access to safe and legal abortions, the use of condoms, and promotes abstinence-only programming as its approach to HIV prevention.

A spokesman from SMUG said that the seminar was another way of encouraging hatred and abuse. "We condemn their discriminatory words and actions that only lead to violence. Suffering is all that they are bringing to Uganda-all in the name of God," the spokesman said in the press release. In response to the violence and abuse against the LGBT community, SMUG launched a campaign: Let Us Live in Peace, shortly after Victor Mukasa and Oyo Yvonne, two human rights defenders had filed a lawsuit against the country's attorney general for an illegal raid on Mukasa's home. In Dec 2008, Mukasa and Yvonne won the suit, which was seen as a landmark victory for the LGBT community in a country that still punishes homosexuality by life sentences in prison and repeated efforts to silence human rights leaders. Members of the FLN claim that the action by the government shows that a "well organized homosexual machinery is taking over Uganda and wreaking havoc in individuals, families and the society." Using this court case as an example and claiming in a promotional slogan "Homosexuality is spreading like wildfire in schools," the FLN and its organizers invited parents, teachers, government workers, politicians, counselors and faith leaders to the seminar, who paid 25,000 Ugandan Shillings a day or approximately U.S. $12.60 to attend, with reading and other materials as an additional cost.

But Bishop Dr. Christopher Ssenyonjo, a Ugandan cleric who was expelled from the Anglican [Episcopal] Church for supporting the LGBT community, said that there is a lot of misunderstanding about human sexuality. "This workshop is going to bring more conflict, greater hostility, increased intimidation. We need love. In the long run, love will overcome," said Bishop Ssenyonjo. The last eight years saw a rise in the U.S. religious right exporting homophobia and intolerance to poor countries, including those on continent of Africa, as a price for much needed financial aid. The press release stated that, with the support of U.S.-based anti-gay organizations and faith leaders such as Family Watch International and Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, who gave the invocation at the Presidential Inauguration; a Ugandan pastor, Martin Ssempa, from Makerere Community Church has attacked the LGBT community, women's rights, and HIV activists. "There should be no rights granted to homosexuals in this country," said Ssempa in a statement quoted in the press release. He had organized a multi-denominational rally in 2007 against LGBT rights in Kampala, at which event another cleric called for the "starving to death of homosexuals."