According to the BBC, Uganda saw a serious rise in human sacrifice in 2009. They had 26 murders that appeared to be ritualistic as opposed to 4 the previous year. The BBC hints that the 26 don’t include other deaths that weren’t reported or went unnoticed or ‘missing persons’ who have yet to be accounted for.

Then why do Ugandans keep bringing them over to support that dastardly bill?

The selective logic is kind of interesting. Gay Ugandans dont exist because homosexuality is a ‘foreign’ import. The bill has no ‘foreign’ input, but Scott Lively and Richard Cohen are heavily quoted in the promotion the Bill, and of course Lou Engel is called over, in part to negate the international Christian revulsion…. and when he fails to deliver to expectation, why, what he says does not matter…

Ugh, just the usual hypocrisy of selective, self serving logic. Very able to see the stick in your eye, but not the log in mine.

What Mr. Engels says (or does not say) is of no consequence.

Then why do Ugandans keep bringing them over to support that dastardly bill? Their opinions are apparently valuable to you when they agree.

Human rights are not something one can give and take in a vacuum — they exist in spite of any laws created to frustrate them. When one nation-state seeks to deprive those rights, we are all affected. If you are looking to be ignored on this, that just isn’t going to happen, nor should it.

Go ahead and couch this garbage under the banner of “protecting the children” if it makes you feel better, but the rest of the world — with no significant exceptions — understands otherwise.

He told me that the rally proceeded according to the usual script of the anti-homosexuality rallies which had been ongoing before Engel came to the country. The same speakers, the same rhetoric, the same lies, demonisation and vilification.

Maybe the only thing that he can claim would be that he [Engel] didnt seem to dwell on it, but, certainly, it was more of the same.

And yes, it is true that, soon as he finished his talk [and presumably left for the airport, which was his stated reason], gay bashing and rallying for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was the only thing on the agenda. Maybe the only thing that was missed was Ssempa showing his porn… But, my partner did leave before the whole rally was concluded!

Not one was carrying even an ounce of hatred for homosexuals.

I, for one, am sick of Christians claiming that they don’t have hatred towards homosexuals. Just what do they think hatred is? What do they think it looks like?

When you vilify a group of people for the purpose of stirring up animus towards them, that’s hatred. When you lie about them, claiming that they are a threat to children, that’s hatred. When you are so hostile to this group of people that you publicly condemn those who don’t share your hostility – even those who have been associated with your ministry – that’s hatred.

It seems some Christians think that because “Christians love everyone” that this means that anything they do, no matter how vile, is by definition out of love. I’m saying evil things about you, out of love. I’m making your life more difficult, out of love. I’m taking away your children, out of love. I’m denying you housing and employment, out of love. I’m treating you abominably in ways that I would never ever let anyone treat me, out of love.

This is not only a perversion of the very ideas of love and hate, but it is heretical, offensive to God, and a smear on the name of Christ.

I must apologize for my first comment. Had some family stuff going on last night. Checked in here…saw David’s comments before reading the post…then read Engle’s statement (with David’s comment in mind) and went over to his blogsite to read part one. In the process, I failed to read Warren’s statements and questions that followed Engle’s statement. Had I done so, most of my questions to David would have been unnecessary. Warren DID convey what led to the statement looking a bit weasley.

I wish that we had access to the content of Engle’ 5 PM speech. It is indeed puzzling that he claims to have not heard even ‘an ounce of hatred’ towards homosexuals when the speaker who immediately preceded him openly decried the homosexual idealogy of the West. My sense is that he sees the hatred directed against the idealogy and he sees the homosexuals as victims of the idealogy. This is difficult for us to envision. The Western take is that homosexuals are that way by orientation and that the impact of idealogy is acceptance of that fact. The Ugandan take is that although people may have homosexual urges, that is not who they are; they see the idealogy as an attempt to lead more people to have those urges. It’s a huge difference in perspective. If we talk without addressing or acknowledging that difference, the communications will continually misfire.

The response to the Ugandan Bill from the West was fueled primarily by the extreme of the death penalty (along with some other extremes). Some of these extremes already exist in their laws. Now, the Western cry is for no penalties whatsoever. But we’ve got a complicated apples and oranges scenario going on. We speak of death penalty vs no penalty and don’t address some of those specific offenses that Ugandans felt warranted the death penalty…not private, consensual, adult homosexual behavior.

I don’t have the answers. Politics has so many entanglements to contend with; foreign politics even moreso. I keep trying to see where it is that we are misfiring…not just ‘The West’ in it’s pronouncements and influences but also ‘the Church’.

a principled stand to protect their people and their children from an unwelcome intrusion of homosexual ideology … pressed upon them by the UN, UNICEF, and other NGOs and Western colonialist powers. … threatening to withdraw funding from Uganda if they do not open their doors to these ideologies.

This, in my eyes, deserves special mention. Even in his apology, he’s reproducing the essential rationale of the bill as a response to colonialist efforts and a necessary measure to protect children. It disregards the existence of a domestic movement advocating on the behalf of gay Ugandans. Like a great deal of similar dissembling, it juxtaposes a disavowal of hatred with an insinuation approaching hate speech — the disparaging stereotype that gay people and gay rights advocates somehow threaten children.

Lastly, what is meant by “open their doors to these ideologies? His opposition to this might be read as agreement with the bill’s opposition to the freedoms of expression and association.

I have to wonder why the same criminizalation and smear campaign is not also directed at adultery, divorce, and remarriage .. all of which Jesus spoke heavily against.