……..that does NOT imply that the greater majority (who span the whole spectrum from outright hostility and hatred to those who are indifferent) are by default pro-bill………………………….

You make several assumptions and/or presumptions. I am not being optimistic, it’s you who is being intrasingently pessimistic. You make an assumption that any Ugandan who does not “endorse”, “recommend” or is not “comfortable” with LGBT orientation is for the bill. I will admit that those who fully agree and endorse the LGBT orientation are in the minority, but make no mistake, that does NOT imply that the greater majority (who span the whole spectrum from outright hostility and hatred to those who are indifferent) are by default against the bill.

The problem does not lie with the poor and uneducated masses, many of these live side by side to gays. Even the “good” pastor Ssempa picked his trophy “convert” to heterosexuality from the slums(PS: last I heard, the trophy convert has “reverted” to his original orientation).

Was his orientation a secret to his neigbours? Absolutely not!

Did the neighbours organise an angry mob and carry him off to the stake? Hell no!

The only people obsessed with this issue is us the indoctrinated elite and our indoctrinaires, problem is that many in this class have an influence either because of wealth, power or patronage. There does not exist a bottom up fervor for this bill.

While the Bahati’s and Buturo’s remain obsessed with the bill and their apparent voyeurism into all Ugandan’s bedrooms, their colleagues in parliament have rightly moved on to things that really matter, and they are many.

And that “devious fox” as you call him is all too predictable, any bill that gathers dust in committee is in the Ugandan experience doomed to the abyss. There’s also another thing el presidente’ is banking on, Ugandans have very short memories and attention spans(an attribute which has come in handy all too often), soon no one will remember that there even was a bill, but not for a lack of trying by our friends across the pond, the conservative evangelicals, who keep coming and putting it on the front page.

This legislation is doomed, the president already has a fall back, the colonial era penal code we inherited, all he has to say is that we already have laws on the books for the same purpose, and then it will be back to the status quo preceding the debacle of the bill, to the chagrin of a few people, I imagine!

1. Lou Engle is relatively unknown in these parts

2.There was no concerted effort by his endorsers to publicize the event.

3. The message simply did not resonate with many and just didn’t stir the interest or fervor that many of these things normally do. The ones that fire up the masses over here have to do with prosperity gospel intertwined with promises of miracles.

4.Also what didn’t help, Engle was not here at the invitation of a local church/pastor, normally the congregation of the host pastor/church serve as a free advert mechanism.

you are quite optimistic, which I am sure gives comfort to Euro-American Gay Lobbies. What makes you think that “numero uno has pronounced himself on this matter?” He merely said all should “go slow”. If you really know the devious NRA fox called Yoweri .K. Museveni then you will know that your intepretation of his heavily coded statement is super- optimistic. The number of Ugandans who attend the rallies of bible-bashing fundamentalists is not a function of the number of Ugandans who support the bill. So I am not so sure why you think the number of people that went to The Call is an indicator of whether the bill has lost support among the masses. If you want to truely assess public mood on the matter, then why not tell elements from the Ugandan subsidiaries of Western Gay Lobbies to hold a press conference to demand “their freedom”. If there is no response from the people, then I will agree with you that the public has lost interest and that the only interested parties remain Bahati, Buturo and Ssempa. But the question is: “will your gay buddies want to take a risk that will draw a public reaction stronger than what any White American man can ALLEGEDLY incite?” Anyway, if your over-confidence that “the-bill-will-never-pass” allows you and Mr. Throckmorton to sleep soundly at night then I guess that is okay to be super-optimistic.