BBC News: Ssempa shows porn to church audience

The leader of the Ugandans for Truth About Homosexuality Pastor’s Task Force Against Homosexuality, Martin Ssempa decided to take his pornography show to church, according to the BBC.

A Ugandan clergyman’s decision to show gay pornography to his congregation has been labelled as “twisted, homophobic propaganda” by a gay rights groups.

Behind the Mask told the BBC the stunt, by anti-gay Pastor Martin Ssempa, equated homosexuality to paedophilia.

The pastor showed the pornography in an attempt to gain support for a proposed law which would see some gay people facing the death penalty.

Earlier this week, I reported the reactions of some Pacific Lutheran University students who were in a similar presentation last month in Kampala. The students were not impressed and the presentation did not encourage them to favor harsh punishments for homosexual behavior.

Ssempa has divided his American supporters over his methods and views. Rick Warren and WAIT Training have severed ties with Ssempa. However, he represents Oral Roberts University in Uganda and is financially supported by Canyon Ridge Christian Church (Las Vegas).

UPDATE:

Next he wants to take the show to the Parliament.

The photos above were provided anonymously by someone who attended one of the presentations over the past few weeks. I have more but I am unsure whether to post them. Suffice to say they are troubling but not in the way Pastor Ssempa hopes. This is leather S&M which of course is unrepresentative of the population he hopes to demonize.

20 thoughts on “BBC News: Ssempa shows porn to church audience”

  2. @Steve:

    lol …it’s that unbelievable, but unfortunately it’s true. the photo confirms exactly what was described in several other eye witness’ detailed accounts of Ssempa’s porn presentations… as well as Ssempa’s televised account of the scat porn he’s been watching and trying to get people to believe is “what homosexuals do”:

    http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/01/25/19830

    in the youtube video above, he describes this exact porn image as shown on his laptop in that photo, and uses wild gestures that accurately immitate the scat porn as shown in the photo of his presentation.

    the fact that he describes scat porn so graphically on national television without warning viewers of adult content, means that Ssempa exposed the many minors watching his televised show to (extremely graphic descriptions of) scat porn… something he’s been trying to deny after early reports of him attempting to justify showing porn in the presence of his kids at one of his porn presentations.

  3. The pictures look phony to me. The guy could be gesturing about anything, and the laptop just photoshopped in.

  4. Dr Throckmorton,

    I think the images are highly material to your line of argument, so please keep them. They illustrate very clearly what a sad place a church can become. (Not that this is specially new, but it is educational nonetheless).

    I’m actively lobbying for two measures:

    1) political pressure on African homophobic governments,

    2) freeze of international aid till the reversal of the announced measures.

    Thanks again,

  5. A brand-new MacBook Pro. In Uganda, where per-capita income is a few hundred bucks.

    The Pastor must make pretty good money spreading hate. He probably drives a flashy car, too.

  6. It’s no better in Kenya.

    In the coastal town of Mtwapa in Kenya’s Kilifi district, media hysteria and outrage by clerics over a non-existent gay wedding whipped up mob violence that began on February 12, unleashing a house-to-house witch hunt by anti-gay vigilantes, street attacks targeting gay men, the sacking of an AIDS-fighting medical center, and a widening wave of ultra-homophobic national media coverage.

    It’s getting bad now.

    The day after this inflammatory press conference, a well-organized mob of some 200 to 300 people armed with sticks, stones, and other weapons, and led by a vigilante leader named Faridi surrounded the KEMRI clinic, which was alleged to be the site of the non-existent wedding, and demanded that all the “shogas” come out of the building. “Shoga” is a Swahili word used as a pejorative against homosexuals — the equivalent of “faggot” — but also by women when referring to their close female friends.

    Faridi, the vigilante leader, entered the clinic accompanied by police officers and confronted a staff member wearing a World AIDS Day T-shirt with a pink triangle that read “Condoms prevent AIDS” in Swahili. The vigilante is reported to have said, “This man is a shoga,” and at his demand, the police arrested him. Another KEMRI staffer was arrested later, also at Faridi’s insistence.

    Nzioka told Gay City News that the KEMRI clinic was subsequently sacked, with material including computers destroyed, and was forced to shut down.

    Hysteria.

    A former member of Kenya’s parliament, Omar Masumbuko, was one of several politicians who also addressed the mob. “He said that homosexuality must be stopped and every means used to make that happen,” according to the GALCK-KHRC report. “He told the crowd they should not even bother to bring the homosexuals they find to the police station but should take care of the issue themselves,”

    Sodomy and sex “against the order of nature” are crimes in Kenya, punishable by ten years in prison, under a law inherited from the period of British colonial rule, which ended in 1963.

    February 12 was punctuated by numerous attacks on gay people. At 8 that morning, before leading the mob attack on the KEMRI clinic, Faridi was joined by police in storming and ransacking the home of a gay man, who was arrested along with a friend who was visiting from abroad. While searching the guest’s luggage, they found jewelry that included some rings. Faridi immediately said that these were the rings for the intended wedding.

    What does “take care of the issue themselves” mean?

    In a separate incident, a 23-year-old security guard was descending from a bus heading toward the center of Mtwapa when he was set upon by a mob that threatened him with death and beat him senseless. A female sex worker tried to protect him with her body and yelled at the crowd that they can’t kill people like that and that the man had not done anything, but the mob doused the man with kerosene, preparing to burn him alive. At this point the police arrived, but instead of arresting anyone in the mob, they arrested the man it had attacked. The bloodied, dazed man was incarcerated and denied medical attention.

    The following day, a volunteer at the KEMRI clinic was attacked by a mob, which chanted that it was actually his wedding they had disrupted. The man was severely beaten and burnt with cigarette butts. As the mob prepared to douse the man with kerosene, he too was arrested.

    Pogrom.

  7. The guy covering his face in the picture is a now retired veteran education ministry administrator for primary education, Mr.Fagil Mandy. A previous screening brought a lady MP to tears and some to head to their cars. So, seems to me he’s indirectly reducing his stock with each screening.. But the “good” pastor is a persistent one!

  8. I hope the guy in the picture is covering he face because he is ashamed of the man showing the dirty pictures.

  11. @ Warren,

    If this is pornography (I agree)…

    What about “Fistgate” here in the US?

  13. I have more but I am unsure whether to post them.

    I would prefer videos of Switchfoot in a natural outside environment with their untucked Burberry shirts.

  14. Ssempa shows Gay S & M porn to church as example of normal Gay sexual behavior (headline).

  15. i find those photos very disturbing, BUT…

    nothing beats hard evidence.

    please dont delete the photos.

  16. To be fair he should add in the porn that was produced by that Grove City College senior.

    I wonder how many websites Ssempa has had to subscribe to. And while he is at it, if anyone else in Uganda had gone on this sort of ‘educational diatribe’ I am sure that the Ugandan thought police would have arrested them for showing porn. So why does a preacher get a free pass?

  17. Such visuals are entirely unnecesary. I feel the same about the pictures of twisted, aborted fetuses.

  18. It is so sad that his kind of action actually works for some people. Otherwise it would not continued to be used by others. Sad – really. Sad.

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