By Elijah M. Tumwebaze

10^th Dec 2012:

Anti-gay protestor calls for death penalty

Uganda’s biggest tabloid newspaper The Red Pepper last week published graphic pornographic pictures of a man allegedly having gay sex with a sixteen year old boy.  In just a few hours, the news had spread across the entire city like the proverbial wild fire.

It was as though something catastrophic that threatens the very survival of the republic of Uganda had just happened.  Very soon, news starting trickling in that the man who had allegedly sodomised a 16 year old boy had fled the country – obviously fearing for his life.  And who can blame him?

From my vantage point at humble bar in Kitintale, for example, it was apparent that the public reaction was immediate, indignant, and in some cases, even threatening to turn violent – with a host of visibly angry people trying to out-do each other in a bid to show that they were more offended by the sickening homosexual sex images.

Just to drag your imagination into the explosive mood I experienced at this bar, perhaps I should let you into some of things I heard.  Convinced that advent of homosexuality in Uganda must be attributed to the activities of global gay lobby, one young man said:  “…The gay lobby is a satanic movement whose leaders deserve to be executed.”

An older gentleman, probably in his mid-late fifties, also weighed into the anti-homosexuality diatribe and said: “…In Bushenyi where I come from, if such a man was caught sodomising a teenage boy, I can tell you people will chop off his penis and make him eat it before they turn to his body and cut it into pieces for dogs to eat.”

And if you thought that is the usual homophobic bravado you would expect from testosterone filled semi intoxicated African men, then here this:  A middle aged woman, who seemed to be only drinking soft non-alcoholic drinks, also declared her deep phobia of homosexuality.

“…My own son, whom I carried for nine months and shed blood to bring to this world – and I find another man sodomising him, you are joking: I will stab that bustard straight in the heart with my kitchen knife and walk straight to police and say I have killed a biological mistake.”

The mere talk of homosexuality in most Ugandan communities is considered to be one of the biggest taboo subjects.  My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that nearly 99.9% of Ugandans consider homosexuality to be an abominable Western lifestyle phenomenon that is totally alien to their deeply held heterosexual family values.

And the real point is this: Like any lobby organisation, the gay lobby clearly has a right to push its agenda wherever they want to – that is not in dispute.  However, it would also be a fatal and self-defeating error for it to ignore the strong anti-homosexuality cultural sentiments that are prevalent in virtually every corner of Uganda.

There some wars that are quite simply not worth fighting – and the struggle to make homosexuality acceptable in Uganda is one such war.  In fact, I fear that if members of the global gay lobby insist on pushing on with their campaign, a few of them will be killed in Uganda.

And you know what?  It’s unlikely that President Museveni’s government will push for the prosecution of such killers – not least because the powerful First Lady Mrs Janet Museveni is a staunch born-again Christian.   END: Login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories mid-week for our updates

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