I understand. I don’t like the word ‘homosexuality’ because of the various confusions it presents. Wish that all religious folks would stop using it (including myself!) and simply speak to ‘homosexual behavior’. It wouldn’t clear up all confusions but some.

While they were speaking forthrightly to their objection to homosexual behavior, I do not believe it was their intent to say that homosexuals do not have a right to participate in society. I’m sure they object to lying and likely speak out strongly against it…but with the terms ‘homosexuality’ and ‘homosexual orientation’, comes the presumption that it’s not just something you DO but WHO YOU ARE.

(Even the term ‘homosexuals’ identifies unique and complex individuals only by their sexual attraction and/or behavior when, in reality, there is so much more to each and every one.)

I daresay that I’ve wrestled with many a sin in my life and there were those I committed far more often than engaging homosexually but neither I nor the world around me actually identified me, labelled me by those other behaviors or desires.

I believe I’ve read elsewhere over the course of these dialogues that Ugandans, as a whole, don’t buy into the notion of orientation. For this reason, I don’t believe that they meant to speak to the whole of the person but rather to the homosexual behaviors. I understand that the message would still be objectionable but I don’t believe it runs to the extreme of rejecting the people or their rights to participate in society.

The IRCU Council of Presidents, therefore, condemns homosexuality as an undesirable evil that should not be allowed in our society.

Whatever one thinks of homosexual behavior, gays exist and have a right to participate in society.

They used the word ‘sin’ or ‘sinners’ several times…dictionary translates that ‘as transgression of divine law’. They are religious; they believe in the divine; they believe in transgressions; they call them ‘sin’.

They used the word ‘evil’ twice. I realize we don’t use that one much in our culture. Primary definition is ‘morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked’. To know whether these religious folks have a specialized vendetta against homosexuals, I’d have to hear how often they use that word ‘evil’ in respect to other moral conditions.

They speak to the sin creeping in. This too has a dark and ugly spin except when you consider that it’s been one of the primary objectives of both the religious and the non-religious throughout the ages. When we consider something to be morally objectionable and as a potential threat to morals or general well-being, whether we are religious or non, we guard against it’s creeping in. (I don’t believe it’s only the religious who desire that casinos and such don’t exist in our neighborhoods.)

They speak to this also when they say ‘our mandate to nurture and protect the moral fibre of our society’.

Conversely, don’t those who hold to more liberal values engage in a campaign against ‘creeping conservatism’? Don’t we all see ‘the other’ as something that needs to be guarded against? The issue would be whether either side engages in that campaign fairly and without deception.*

So, they’ve clearly separated themselves from the agenda of Sempa and Bahati while declaring their belief that homosexual behavior is sinful and immoral. They spoke in a clear voice consistent with their beliefs and didn’t appear to ‘supercharge’ their words.

Is it their language that is disturbing or is it 1) their belief that homosexual behavior is immoral and/or that 2) they believe they have a ‘mandate to nurture and protect the moral fibre’ of their society?

*If we anticipate deception from those who sponsored this statement, on what basis do we do so? Have they given us any reason to believe that they are deceptive? Or, because they are ‘others’, do we not see them clearly enough…do we see them somehow through the Sempa/Bahati filter although they’ve clearly distinguished themselves from that mindset?