Year: 2011

The discussion is lively…

Yesterday, I posted three sources which reported that religious leaders were calling for the consideration of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill before the end of Uganda’s 8th session of Parliament in May. In what may signal a more serious intent to move forward, the website of Uganda’s Parliament reported on the petition, confirming 2 million signatures had been presented to the lawmakers. 

Anti homosexuality crusaders have petitioned Parliament calling for urgent consideration of the anti-homosexuality bill that is before Parliament.
The crusaders led by Dr.Pastor Martin Sempa have expressed concern that recruitment of youths into homosexuality is ongoing and children need protection from this type of trafficking.
In a petition to Parliament signed by over two million crusaders May 6, Pastor Sempa urged Members of Parliament to shun pressure and threats from countries of the Western world as they consider the bill.
They told the Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Edward Ssekandi that many Ugandans are worried that the bill may not be considered by the Eighth Parliament whose term elapses in May. 
Bishop Julius Oyet one of the key petitioners decried homosexuality arguing that it proves a threat to culture and civilization. He re-echoed the need to protect the institution of marriage that has served as a social contract for many civilizations.
The petitioners also named nineteen non-governmental organizations accused of promoting homosexuality in Uganda through several fora.
Speaker of Parliament Rt.Hon.Edward Ssekandi says Parliament will consider the bill once the legal and parliamentary affairs committee of parliament tables its report.

Ssekandi could be relying on the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee to stall the situation. He may know that there are too many bills to consider and that he will never see the report which he told the petitioners would trigger a vote in parliament. However, note that he did not reject the bill or say it was shelved.

In sharp contradiction to Christianity Today columnist Timothy Shah’s statement that Uganda’s religious and political leaders were “repelled” by David Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, various such leaders spoke out in support for the bill in the waning days of the 8th Parliament.
Today, UG Pulse reported:

Religious leaders, as well as the civil society organisations have today petitioned the Speaker of Parliament, Edward Ssekandi, calling for the debate and passing of the controversial Anti Homosexuality bill.
This comes a day after the activists were thrown out of the Parliament, shortly after meeting the chairman of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee, Stephen Tashobya on the same matter.
The Inter Religious Taskforce against Homosexuality, led by Pastor Martin Ssempa and Bishop Julius Oyet, presented over 2000 signatures collected from across the country, calling for the passing of the bill, which they say will protect the children.
They also revealed that a lot of money had been injected into a recruitment drive and if the legal committee was delaying, the bill should be moved to a different committee instead.
The Speaker of Parliament, Edward Ssekandi told the taskforce that Parliament will receive all views from different stakeholders before it is either passed or rejected.
He however promised to consult with the relevant committee to discuss the bill as soon as possible.

Yesterday, a Voice of America report said the signatures numbered 2 million.

Religious leaders in Uganda are calling for a renewed debate of the country’s “anti-homosexuality” bill which they argue is essential to protect Ugandan children from homosexual recruitment.
On Wednesday, religious leaders and anti-homosexual activists from around Uganda gathered in parliament to urge debate on the country’s much-maligned “anti-homosexuality” bill.
The bill – also known as the Bahati Bill for the Member of Parliament who introduced it – has garnered worldwide attention for a provision which set the death penalty as punishment for certain homosexual acts. While the death penalty has since been removed from the bill, advocates continue to call for its passage as a means of protecting Uganda’s children.
Lead by Pastor Martin Ssempa, a charismatic and vocal opponent of homosexuality in Uganda, the group asked Ugandan Parliamentary Speaker Edward Kiwanuka [Ssekandi] to fight the emerging “homo-cracy” in Uganda and enter the bill for debate.
“We as religious leaders and civil society are distressed that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is being deliberately killed largely by the undemocratic threats of western nations,” he said. “These same nations who promote democracy don’t want our representative to discuss laws to protect our children from the human trafficking of recruiting our children into homosexuality.”
Ssempa leads the Inter-Religious Taskforce Against Homosexuality. During the session with Speaker Kiwanuka, the Task Force presented a portion of over 2 million signatures it said were gathered from around Uganda in support of the bill.

In fact, Julius Oyet was deputized by David Bahati to gather these signatures.
Then, this report was filed late yesterday in the Daily Monitor. The Speaker of the Parliament gave an encouraging word to the religious leaders:

First Bryan Fischer said:

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

“Rut like rabbits?” Backtrack like crazy! Then he changed it to:

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it’s no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of those who engage in random and reckless promiscuity, whether they are Caucasian, Hispanic, or African-American.

All that because the Left Went Wiggy!
Fischer’s observations about poverty and rutting came in a column where Fischer said Jesus groomed the Apostles for political office (now edited to remove the rut).  We don’t have much information about the later lives of the Apostles but I don’t think they went on to stellar political careers.

Of course not.
However, as I have been examining, Bryan Fischer seems to think so. Fischer says that the First Amendment only protects the religious expression of Christianity. According to Fischer non-Christian religions have no Constitutional protect but may be tolerated.
Today, the Christian Post and Crosswalk published a more detailed treatment of the topic where I address the claims that the author of the First Amendment, James Madison, and the members of Congress only meant to protect Christianity. Although the dominant religion was indeed Christianity, the words of Madison and Jefferson make clear that the right envisioned was an individual right of conscience and not tied to a particular religion.
In the article today, I mention a book by William Lee Miller, titled The First Liberty. I highly recommend this book. In it, Miller examines the influence Rhode Island’s Roger Williams had on John Locke, who in turn influenced James Madison. Even more direct was the intellectual line from Williams to Baptists Isaac Backus and John Leland. Leland had direct influence on Madison.
Miller provides ample evidence of Williams commitment to religious freedom. For instance, according to Stephen Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Williams was “the first legislator in the world…that fully and effectively provided for and established free, full and absolute liberty of conscience.”
Connecting the dots, Miller adds:

Williams name and conviction were carried into the period of the American Revolution and founding by John Leland in Virginia and by Isaac Backus in New England. Leland, as noted, was the most important leader with whom James Madison made his moral understanding at the time in 1787-1788 that the issue of ratification of the Constitution was being debated in the states — most significantly in Virginia. Leland gave voice to the complaint against the Constitution that it had no bill of rights, and in particular no explicit protection of religious liberty. Madison made with Leland his consequential moral agreement: You support the Consitution now; I will introduce a bill of rights as amendments in the first Congress. So that was one way the ghost of Roger Williams made its way into the founding documents.

Williams “free, full and absolute liberty of conscience” is much closer to what we have in the First Amendment than Fischer’s limited vision. The Constitution then, and now via the 14th Amendment and numerous Supreme Court decisions, provide protection for adherents of all religions and none.
The article after the break: Continue reading “Did the First Amendment make America a Christian nation?”