A group in Uganda called the “Forum for Kings and Cultural Leaders in Uganda” urged the government to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill yesterday. The news released reportedly said:
…homosexuality breaks the laws of nature, faith, the Constitution and the laws of culture and traditions
Bahati, cheered by the support said:
Mr Bahati, in a phone interview yesterday, welcomed efforts of the traditional leaders, saying “because at the end of the day, homosexuality is a danger to the culture that they are charged with protecting.”
While reading the article, I thought of my article titled, “Eliminating homosexuality: Nazi Germany and modern Uganda.” In it, I point out the attitudes of the National Socialists toward homosexuality. War criminal Josef Meisinger was the head of the Reich office charged with eliminating homosexuality. In a 1937 speech, he had this to say about the political reasons to combat homosexuality.
If one is really to appreciate the hidden danger of homosexuality, it is no longer enough to consider it as before from a narrowly criminal viewpoint. Because it is now so enormously widespread, it has actually developed into a phenomenon of the most far-reaching consequence for the survival of the nation and state. For this reason, however, homosexuality can no longer be regarded simply from the viewpoint of criminal investigation; it has become a problem with political importance. This being so, it cannot be the task of the police to investigate homosexuality scientifically. At the most it can take account of scientific conclusions in its work. Their task is to ascertain homosexual trends and their damaging effects, so as to avert the danger that this phenomenon represents for nation and state. No one says to the police: you shouldn’t arrest this thief because he might have acquired kleptomania. Similarly, once we have recognized that a homosexual is an enemy of the state, we shan’t ask the police-and much less the Political Police-whether he has acquired his vice or whether he was born with it. I should mention here that experience has shown beyond doubt that only a vanishingly small number of homosexuals have a truly homosexual inclination, that most of them by far have been quite normally active at one time or another and then turned to this area simply because they were sated with life’s pleasures or for various other reasons such as fear of venereal diseases. I should also say that, with firm education and order, and regulated labor, a great number of homosexuals who have come to the attention of the authorities have been taught to become useful members of the national community.
Note that the “danger” of homosexuality is framed in nationalistic terms, much as it is currently in Uganda. When one considers this nationalism along with the fervor that some religious leaders are inciting, and it should be clear why the situation must seem very precarious for homosexuals there.