Category: Religion and sexuality

Uganda’s Rolling Stone continues “Hang Them” campaign (Photos)

Update: According to the BBC, a Ugandan judge has ordered the Rolling Stone to stop outing gays.

Giles Muhame, editor of the two-month-old Rolling Stone paper, told the AFP news agency that he would defy the ban.

“We will publish more pictures but in a diplomatic way, so that we can dodge the law,” he said.

On his Facebook page, editor Giles Muhame said this about the court ruling:

I have heard on grapevine that Kampala high court today afternoon issued an injunction barring the mighty Rolling Stone from publishing information that could lead to the identification of homosexuals…..the newspaper has already achieved its objective….By the way this means we can write about homosexuality but not …identify them….ok, understood…we are law abiding citizens….

I have obtained some screen shots of the Rolling Stone which continues the “hang the gays” campaign in Uganda. I am going to publish them first and then add commentary through the morning. Some cannot be published without heavy editing since they include pictures and names.

Click the next image to read an interview done by Oral Roberts University Board of Reference member, Martin Ssempa, with a young girl he continues to promote as an ex-lesbian. Ssempa told his former benefactor Canyon Ridge Christian Church that he disapproved of the “hang the gays” campaign but now he appears in the Rolling Stone again. I asked Rolling Stone editor Giles Muhame about his pastor’s (Ssempa) stated diapproval of the first “hang the gays” issue, and he did declined to answer. He did however, say that Ssempa had given them an interview. Two credible sources in Uganda have told me that both Giles Muhame and Cliff Abenaitwe attend Ssempa’s Makerere Community Church.

The next image is a lead article which looks like it could come from the Family Research Institute. In fact, the article titled, “More Homos Faces Exposed” quotes Paul Cameron’s lifespan articles. It also cites a “reliable source” saying that the stalled Anti-Homosexuality Bill will be passed when Uganda becomes an oil producer.

 

 Human rights groups in Uganda are trying to limit or halt the paper’s activities. Today or tomorrow a Uganda court is expected to hear an application for the paper to cease publishing. Managing editor Cliff  Abenaitwe told me in an email that he expects to prevail, saying

As regards the pending court case, its an application by a human rights group requesting court to order this People’s favourite political news paper from publishing more pictures of homosexuals in Uganda but as i stated above it is an application but court is yet to decide. nevertheless, its a matter of time till court decides in our favour because there is nothing wrong with what we are writing.

Click the image above to read Managing Editor Giles Muhame’s defense for this outing campaign. I have blocked out most of the pictures and descriptions of the men outed here. The remainder of the images I have are similar to these.

Uganda’s Rolling Stone brings out second part of Hang Them campaign; court to hear objections

While I haven’t seen it, I have independent verification that the Rolling Stone has hit the street in Uganda. According to Giles Muhame (seen in this CNN interview), and the Rolling Stone Facebook page, the paper became available today. According to Muhame:

The Rolling Stone has again published 20 more pictures of homosexuals in Uganda. The early edition for monday is already on the street. Our kampala readers can pick copies from Petro (jinja road) and “sell-out” point -Bugolobi stage,” said Circulation chief Nicholas. There we roll….

Also, according to Muhame and other sources in Uganda, a complaint has been filed against the editors and will be heard early this week. I hope to have screen captures of the paper soon. Watch for updates…

Uganda’s Rolling Stone editor speaks to CNN (video)

Giles Muhame’s interview with CNN – where he says gays have no privacy and he hopes that the police investigates the gays and hangs them.

This is very similar to arguments offered by Martin Ssempa early on when the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was offered in late 2009. In his view, gays are doing illegal things in private so there is no private consensual behavior to protect.

According to the Rolling Stone editors, the paper will come out tomorrow (or Saturday according to one of them) with part two of the “hang them” campaign.

Bahati says Anti-Homosexuality Bill has not been shelved (VIDEO)

David Bahati finally speaks. He had been contacted by several media sources asking about the AHB.

Kampala, Uganda (CNN) — The member of the Ugandan Parliament behind a controversial “anti-gay” bill that would call for stiff penalties against homosexuality — including life imprisonment and the death penalty — says that the bill will become law “soon.”

“We are very confident,” David Bahati told CNN, “because this is a piece of legislation that is needed in this country to protect the traditional family here in Africa, and also protect the future of our children.”

Governments that have donated aid to Uganda and human rights groups applied massive pressure since the bill was proposed a year ago, and most believed that the bill had been since shelved.

Not so, says Bahati, adding, “Every single day of my life now I am still pushing that it passes.”

His statements come in the wake of a global outcry over a tabloid publication of Uganda’s “top 100 homosexuals” that included pictures and addresses of Ugandans perceived to be gay.

It is not hard to imagine a coordination of efforts between various players and the Rolling Stone. Time is short if the bill is to move before the holiday recess. Elections are not far away either, so this might be election talk. However, with the Rolling Stone preparing an issue with more outings on Friday, a government official pledging anew to make the “hang them” campaign law is an ominous development.

Video has been provided by CNN:

NPR on bullying and religious controversies

Barbara Bradley Hagerty wrote a segment on NPR today titled,  Religious Undercurrent Ripples In Anti-Gay Bullying. Go check it out; you will recognize her interviewees and she does a nice job of covering several perspectives.

Consider Justin Anderson, who graduated from Blaine High School outside Minneapolis last year. He says his teenage years were a living hell. From sixth grade on, he heard the same taunts.

“People say things like ‘Fags should just disappear so we don’t have to deal with them anymore’ and, ‘Fags are disgusting and sinful,'” he told the Anoka-Hennepin School Board. “And still, there was no one intervening. I began to feel so worthless and ashamed and unloved that I began to think about taking my life.”

Anderson told his story at a public hearing last month — a hearing convened because in the past year, the district has seen a spate of student suicides. Four of those suicides have been linked to anti-gay bullying.

The Minnesota Family Council and Tony Perkins of the Family Reasearch Council provide their viewpoint, and I take a different view in the segment. You also hear from Sirdeaner Walker, who lost her son, Carl to bullying last year. She is a Christian who has become a board member at GLSEN.

Go check it out…