Tag: anti-homosexuality bill

David Bahati denied entrance to Washington DC conference

Doug Hadden, spokesman for the International Consortium of Governmental Financial Management, just informed me that David Bahati, author of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill attempted to enter the financial management conference this morning, saying:

He arrived mid morning and was informed of the decision. It turns out that we didn’t have his proper e-mail address for his phone. There was a frank but calm discussion and Mr. Bahati was not able to enter the building.

Mr. Hadden is referring to the decision to bar Bahati from the ICGFM conference going on now in Washington, DC.

Martin Ssempa resigns from the Oral Roberts University Board of Reference

Back in January, I noted that Martin Ssempa, at the time the most vocal pastoral supporter of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, was a member of the Board of Reference at Oral Roberts University. At the time, the school had no comment about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill or Rev. Ssempa’s controversial public pornography displays.

Recently, Change.org crafted a petition delivered to ORU asking them to denounce the anti-gay effort. This petition and another article were triggered by Ssempa’s involvement in campaigns of outing gays published in the Ugandan tabloids, Rolling Stone and the Campus Nail.

Earlier today, ORU Director of Public Relations Jeremy Burton sent an email with this simple message:

I wanted to let you know that Martin Ssempa has resigned from the ORU Board of Reference.

I followed up with questions about the timing and circumstances of the resignation but Mr. Burton has not replied as yet.

Kenyan Prime Minister calls for arrests of gays

According to this report, Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga said on Sunday that homosexuals should be arrested.

Mr Odinga on Sunday said that police should arrest anyone found engaging in such behaviours and take appropriate legal action against them.

“We will not tolerate such behaviours in the country. The constitution is very clear on this issue and men or women found engaging in homosexuality will not be spared,” Mr Odinga said.

“Any man found engaging in sexual activities with another man should be arrested. Even women found engaging in sexual activities will be arrested,” the premier warned.

Speaking at a public rally at the Kamukunji grounds in his Nairobi’s Kibera constituency on Sunday afternoon, the Prime Minister cited the recent population census results which put the ratio of men to women equal and wondered why people should engage in homosexuality.

Odinga is no stranger to controversy. He and current President Kibaki agreed to a power sharing agreement after a disputed presidential election in 2007. Violence following the disputed results left thousands dead and many more displaced. He once claimed to be a cousin of President Obama but Odinga offered no evidence. Last year, Kenya launched a census of gays in order to aid HIV/AIDS treatment. At the time, gays were afraid to come forward. Now it is understandable why they would be.
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According to this Unificationist church website, Odinga welcomed Moon’s church to Kenya for their Global Peace Festival.

The silence from Las Vegas continues…

No huge news here, just been thinking about why the Las Vegas press has not written one word about the connection of Canyon Ridge Christian Church to the international story of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Today, I was contacted by a Finnish writer and yesterday alerted that the BBC is investigating the matter yet again and may be in touch. Most American and many European news organizations have covered the story extensively. NPR and Salon have addressed the Canyon Ridge connection but only one story has emerged in Vegas from an alternative paper, and that one messed up the facts of the bill.

I am aware from those close to the situation that reporters from all the papers and the networks have been made aware of the situation. NPR-Nevada devoted a segment to the matter but I am pretty sure that is all. The church was dropped by the largest health and AIDS groups in town, the church supports a bill mentioned by the President and Secretary of State during the National Prayer Breakfast and the local press overlooks it.

And so the misrepresentation continues. CRCC leaders told their congregants that the bill has been misrepresented in the press and the Las Vegas press has not done anything to investigate that charge. Even one local GLB group has been silent. Yesterday, Michael Bussee asked the Human Rights Campaign – Las Vegas on their Facebook page why they have not spoken out. Good question. As yet, no reply has been offered.

In any event, the foreign press continue to be intrigued by the varying responses of Las Vegas evangelicals to the Ugandan bill, even if Las Vegas news organizations are not.

Martin Ssempa’s campus group dropped from AIDS grant in 2007

 Back in June, I posted several articles which described events in 2007 which were prologue to the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. One August, 2007 article described an anti-gay rally organized by Martin Ssempa and his views on gays and AIDS programs:

“Homosexuals should absolutely not be included in Uganda’s HIV/AIDS framework. It is a crime, and when you are trying to stamp out a crime you don’t include it in your programmes,” Ssempa said.

These events led to an article by Scott Long, Director of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch detailing the threats to HIV treatment and human rights in Uganda. Ssempa then responded to the article in an editorial where he said:

First you [Scott Long] talked about our church, Makerere Community Church, as a recipient of PEPFAR HIV/AIDS funding. The fact is that Makerere Community Church has never received funding.

I found that to be a curious statement since his church is listed as a subpartner on the PEPFAR website for 2004 and then again in PEPFAR grant documents for 2006-2007. Based on these sources, I wrote the following in my June post:

Ssempa said in this editorial that he did not receive PEPFAR funding. However, according to this letter from USAID, his Campus Alliance to Wipe Out AIDS was a subpartner to the Uganda Youth Forum and was subsidized for abstinence based publications. World Magazine identifies a 2004 grant as being $40,000 which came as a subpartner to Population Services International, according to the PEPFAR website. Children’s AIDS Fund reveived 131,666 in Fiscal Year 2007 for work in Uganda. CAWA was one of the subpartners, receiving $50,000 to publish (pg 20) and distribute the newsletter, The Prime Timer. Altogether, groups controlled by Ssempa received at least $90,000 from PEPFAR, according to government records. It is baffling why Ssempa would say otherwise.

I learned last week that I need to make a correction in what I wrote above. Rev. Ssempa did indeed get PEPFAR money via CAWA but not at the level reported on PEPFAR program documents. I spoke last week with Anita Smith, Executive Director of the Children’s AIDS Fund. Since 2005, CAF has implemented the “Preserving African Families in the Face of HIV/AIDS Through Prevention” grant. The grant planned nearly 10 million dollars for abstinence and fidelity education (the AB components of Uganda’s ABC approach) to be spent over five years. One of the subpartners for this operation was Martin Ssempa’s Campus Alliance to Wipe Out AIDS (CAWA). CAWA was slated to get $50,000 as I pointed out in my June post. The funds were proposed for the monthly publication of a magazine directed at college students, called the Prime Timer, for the purpose of promoting abstinence.

However, the group did not get anything close to that, according to Ms. Smith. Why not? According to Smith, CAF ceased their relationship with CAWA due to “lack of performance.” Ms. Smith told me that Martin Ssempa signed the contract in July, 2006 and agreed to produce one magazine per month. However, Smith said she remembered “only one publication that was produced in January, 2007.” 

According to Smith, they were paid $3,950 for the expenses of that one magazine and then the contract was ended in January, 2007. Thus, if World Magazine’s report is accurate and Ssempa’s Global Alliance for Prevention (referred to on the PEPFAR website as Makerere Community Church) received $40,000, then the amount of PEPFAR funding would be $43,950. Here is what World’s Emily Belz said about the use of the funding:

As one result, PSI is no longer fronting abstinence programs in Kampala, and GAP within the last year secured $40,000 in U.S. abstinence-education money. That’s a small sum compared to the $12 million PSI received in the first round of funding, but it’s enough for Ssempa to publish a newspaper promoting abstinence. He distributes the paper on Kampala’s high-school and university campuses.

PSI is Population Services International which was Makerere Community Church’s partner in 2004 according to the PEPFAR website. In any event, it appears that at least some small amount of PEPFAR money was given groups headed by Ssempa.

Ssempa said to the BBC back in February that he receives no funding from the United States (at about 6:10 into the clip). We now know that is a misleading statement since his living expenses and staff salaries are funded by Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas. It seems unlikely that he could have devoted the time and resources to his campaign if he did not have the backing of the church. It is not clear to me why Rev. Ssempa would be sensitive about the funding issue. My guess is that it would undermine some of his appeal to African values which has been one core aspect of his campaign for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.