Uganda has announced plans to resurrect it’s so-called “Kill the Gays” bill, which would make homosexuality punishable by the death penalty, saying it would reverse a rising trend of “unnatural” sex, Reuters reported.
Uganda’s constitutional court overturned the “Kill the Gays” bill in 2014 on a technicality, but now that country’s lawmakers want to resurrect it.
“Homosexuality is not natural to Ugandans, but there has been a massive recruitment by gay people in schools, and especially among the youth, where they are promoting the falsehood that people are born like that,” Simon Lokodo, Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister, told Reuters.
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In addition, lawmakers want to criminalize more than just homosexuality.
“Our current penal law is limited,” said Lokodo. “It only criminalizes the act. We want it made clear that anyone who is even involved in promotion and recruitment also has to be criminalized. Those that do grave acts will be given the death sentence.”
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed the bill into law the first time around, and he supports it now as well.
After the 2014 version of the “Kill the Gays” bill was passed, Uganda faced widespread condemnation.
The World Bank, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands all suspended or reduced aid money, and the U.S. reduced aid, canceled military exercises, and imposed visa restrictions.
Lokodo says the nation is ready to face such blowback this time.
“It is a concern,” he said. “But we are ready. We don’t like blackmailing. Much as we know that this is going to irritate our supporters in budget and governance, we can’t just bend our heads and bow before people who want to impose a culture which is foreign to us.”
Earlier this year, Brunei backed off its intentions to stone homosexuals to death after a large international outcry.
Celebrities including George Clooney and Elton John encouraged a boycott of properties owned by the Sultan of Brunei in response, and several large, multinational companies prevented staff from staying in his hotels.
h/t: Reuters
