Category: politics

Is there a political side to Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill?

I am not a political commentator by trade nor do I play one on TV. However, I have dabbled in it as it does not require a license.

Commenting on US politics is difficult enough, but venturing into Ugandan politics is probably more treacherous. While I have frequently criticized Ugandan MP David Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill on principle, I have infrequently discussed what, if any, political advantages may come from the introduction and support for the bill. At first glance, it seems reasonable that a politician going into an election might seek an issue about which most people agree and make that issue his cause. And indeed, being perceived as a populist may be part of the benefit of the bill for those who support it there. However, there may be broader political motives for the party of Bahati and President Museveni, the National Resistance Movement.

An opposition party (Forum for Democratic Change) leader, Anne Mugisha, speculated in November, 2009 that the bill was introduced in order to take the mind of the public away from government corruption and tinkering with election laws. From her vantage point, the uproar over the bill plays into a pattern, saying

Like all legislative attempts at policing the bedrooms of adults the Bill will have no real impact on our private lifestyles. However, the Bill whether it is passed or not will create a lively debate that will serve a very sinister political purpose. Those who follow Ugandan electoral cycles will not be surprised by this diversion because they would have witnessed the same drama around HIV/AIDS in 2001 and rape in 2006.

She believes this year’s diversion is the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

A good political ploy not only distracts votes but directs their attention toward a specific alternative target. If indeed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill has a political side, the target might be another opposition party candidate, Olara Otunnu. Otunnu has been long considered a potential candidate for the presidency. Recently chosen as the standard bearer for the Uganda People’s Congress, Otunnu is a former diplomat to the United Nations with a long resume of advocacy for children and, as the cartoon below indicates, a single man.

The subtitle to the cartoon reads, “A former UN diplomat, Olara Otunnu, on Sunday won the Uganda People’s Congress presidency in a contest that attracted eight candidate.” That’s the news, but I doubt that was the only message. In January, the UPC went on record as being opposed to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Their leader is single. Get it?

According to Ford and Carter administrations official and frequent visitor to Uganda, Bob Hunter, many Ugandans suspect that a single man over the age of 30 could be a homosexual. Hunter emerged as the spokesperson for the Fellowship Foundation on Uganda when it was disclosed last year that the sponsor of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, David Bahati, had been closely involved with a parliamentary prayer groups associated with the Fellowship Foundation. The Fellowship Foundation, via Hunter and spiritual leader Doug Coe, strongly denounced the bill and expressed hope for it to be withdrawn. Hunter recently returned from a trip to Uganda where he expressed the Fellowship’s opposition to Ugandan leaders as well as conducted mission work in northern Uganda.

Hunter told me that the March 16 cartoon in the government sponsored paper, New Vision, raises the possibility that the NRM plans to make Otunnu’s singleness an election issue. Speaking directly about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Hunter said, “Some there believe that focusing attention on homosexuality might be a way to indirectly cast aspersions on Otunnu.”

No one can be sure of course. However, suggestions of homosexuality might help weaken a candidate in Uganda, especially during a period of debate over a law that seeks to eliminate it from the nation.

Paul Kengor: God Gets His Healthcare Bill

Note: The recent healthcare reform certainly is historic, in the sense that it most likely will be considered an important, perhaps defining, event in the Obama Presidency. Whatever eventually happens politically as a result, there are important elements of public discourse which marked the debate. One of those elements –religious rhetoric– is the subject of Dr. Kengor’s column.  

God Gets His Healthcare Bill

By Dr. Paul Kengor 

The most frustrating thing I’ve dealt with in professional life was eight years of outrageous, baseless charges against President George W. Bush on matters of faith. Even when Bush was simply asked about his faith, and responded with utterly benign statements, like saying he couldn’t imagine surviving the presidency “without faith in the Lord,” or noting he prayed before committing troops, echoing every president from Washington to Lincoln to Wilson to Carter to Clinton, he was viciously assaulted.

“We are dealing with a messianic militarist!” thundered Ralph Nader.

“He should not be praying,” intoned Lawrence O’Donnell to the MSNBC faithful.

Repeatedly, I was called to respond to this nonsense. My retort was agonizingly simple: I merely ran through example after example of American founders, presidents—Democrats and Republicans—saying either precisely what Bush said or something far more extreme, like Woodrow Wilson claiming God called upon him to found the League of Nations, or FDR mounting a battleship leading troops in a rendition of “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

What I said rarely mattered. Every Bush mention of God was a signal, somehow, that this Bible-quoting “simpleton” was trying to transform America into a “theocracy.”

Alas, there was another tactic I used: I quoted current Democrats on the campaign trail, from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, invoking the Almighty. I knew that if these politicians reached the White House, they’d say the same as Bush, or much worse—with no backlash from the secular media. Quite the contrary, liberals would roll out the red carpet, enthusiastically welcoming faith into the public square.

All of that is prelude to my point here today:

The Religious Left, from “social justice” Catholic nuns and Protestant ministers to the Democratic Speaker of the House and president of the United States, have been incessantly claiming God’s advocacy of their healthcare reform. That’s no surprise, just as it’s no surprise that the press is not only not outraged but silently supportive. There’s nary a whimper, let alone howls, of “separation of church and state!”

Consider a few examples, most telling in light of passage of the healthcare bill:

Last August, President Obama addressed a virtual gathering of 140,000 Religious Left individuals. He told them he was “going to need your help” in passing healthcare. Obama penitently invoked a period of “40 Days,” a trial of deliverance from conservative tormentors, from temptation by evildoers. He lifted up the brethren, assuring them, “We are God’s partner in matters of life and death.”

Like a great commissioning, in the 40 Days that followed the Religious Left was filled with the spirit, confidently spreading the word, pushing for—among other things—abortion funding as part of an eternally widening “social justice” agenda. The Religious Institute, which represents 4,800 clergy, urged Congress to include abortion funding in “healthcare” reform, adamantly rejecting amendments that prohibited funding. To not help poor women secure their reproductive rights was unjust, declared the progressive pastors. As the Rev. Debra Hafner, executive director of the Religious Institute, complained, federal policy already “unfairly prevents low-income women and federal employees from receiving subsidized” abortions.

Here we see the Religious Left’s continued perversion of “social justice.” Behold: social justice abortions.

Early last week, a group of 59 nuns sent Congress a letter urging passage of the healthcare bill. This came in direct defiance of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which insisted the bill “must be opposed” because of its refusal to explicitly ban abortion funding. What the bishops said didn’t matter, one nun told Fox’s Neil Cavuto—supporting the bill is what “Jesus would do.”

The liberal media cheered on the nuns, gleefully exaggerating the sisters’ influence. In a breathtaking display, the Los Angeles Times beamed, “Nuns’ support for health-care bill shows [Catholic] Church split.” Quoting the nuns, the Times reported that the letter represented not more than 50 nuns but over 50,000. (I’m not kidding, click here.) Like Jesus with the loaves, the militantly secular/liberal Times had displayed miraculous powers of multiplication.

Finally, last Friday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, invoked the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Joseph on behalf of the healthcare bill. She urged American Catholics to “pray to St. Joseph”—earthly guardian of the unborn son of God. Such overtures are hardly new for Pelosi, who routinely exhorts Democratic disciples to vote the liberal/progressive agenda as an “act of worship.”

All of that is prelude, of course, to what happened the evening of March 21, 2010, A.D., with a rare vote not merely on a Sunday—God’s day—but the final Sunday in Lent, the week before Palm Sunday that initiates the Lord’s Passion. To President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and the Religious Left faithful, Jesus, presumably, has gotten his healthcare package.

Amid that process, secular liberals got religion, as their political soul-mates spearheaded this “change” in the name of Jesus Christ. It’s a quite radical departure from eight years of scourging George W. Bush every time he confessed he prayed. At long last, there is room for Jesus in the inn, so long as the Savior “supports” a certain agenda. Who says conversions don’t happen?

— Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His books include “God and George W. Bush,” “God and Ronald Reagan,” and“God and Hillary Clinton.” The topic of this op-ed will be discussed at length by several speakers at our coming April 15-16 conference on “The Progressives.” Click here for more information.

Health care reform: Who must buy insurance?

The Christian Science Monitor takes a simple stab at this question here.

But here’s a key thing to remember: There is a simple concept at the center of this rambling, Rube Goldbergian machine. Democratic healthcare reform would expand insurance coverage in America by requiring people to obtain it.

That’s right. The healthcare reform bill would mandate that most US citizens and legal residents purchase “minimal essential coverage” for themselves and their dependents. They can get this either through their employer, or, if their employer doesn’t offer health insurance, they can buy it through new marketplaces that will sell policies to individuals.

Those marketplaces would be called “exchanges.” We’ll talk more about them in a later story. (We’ll also cover subsidies for health insurance, when it all would take effect, how it would be paid for, and what it means for businesses.)

I feel sure that the requirement to purchase health insurance will be challenged in court. Forcing a purchase with the penalty of fines seems to compel associations which could give rise to constitutional challenges.  The forced purchases, however, are key to the provision which is attractive to most people: elimination of pre-existing conditions as a reason to refuse coverage.

Why is Congress doing this? It’s a pretty obvious way to expand coverage, for one thing. Also, it will help bring in a flood of new customers for health insurance firms, including healthy young people who might not need much healthcare.

For insurance firms, those new customers could balance out the losses they might incur if they can no longer deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions. (Yes, that’s another change the bill makes.)

And remember, many people will not be buying this coverage purely on their own. Uncle Sam will be helping them. The bookend to the individual mandate is federal subsidies for insurance purchases, which reach deep into the middle class. We’ll talk about those next.

In essence, you and I (via taxes) will be providing coverage for people who may not want it so that people who need coverage for serious conditions will have it. Insurers may still benefit by virtue of the millions of new subscribers. I suspect there will be severe fines for insurers who attempt to limit coverage or benefits. But I don’t know. And the lack of knowledge is what is politically troubling. There will be legislators who approve this bill over the weekend that have not read it.

According to the NY Times, key votes are still in play approaching a Sunday vote.

CPAC in civil war over homosexuality

The Conservative Political Action Conference is meeting now and really went viral today with Ryan Sorba’s rant about homosexuals and natural law. Here is the exchange. Surprising to me, he was booed off the stage.

I want to address this issue further but for now, my observation is that this episode is a data point supporting my contention that conservatives are on civil (ok, uncivil) war over homosexuality. Some want to make demonization of gays a litmus test for being a social conservative and others want to get away from this stance.

Check out this reaction from the conservative blog Hot Air.

Jan Mickelson Show WHO on at 11:00am

I will be on the Jan Mickelson Show WHO Des Moines at 11:00am (est). We will be discussing Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009. You can listen live here. If that doesn’t work, go to Mickelson’s website and click the Listen Live link.