Museveni boosts African anti-gay campaign despite inaction on Ugandan bill
Human race depends on gay people procreating, Uganda president claims.
COMMENTARY
By Joto La Jiwe
The President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, has expressed support for the goals of the country’s repressive new Anti-Homosexuality Bill but he has not yet signed it.
Instead, at an international conference March 31-April 1, he said he would soon meet with members of parliament to reach an agreement on how best to protect Ugandan children from homosexuality.
In explaining his support for the anti-gay initiative, Museveni turned to a bizarre but common anti-gay claim — that, despite the fact that the world struggles with overpopulation, the human race could die out if sexual minorities don’t procreate.
The future of the human race is in danger because of LGBT people, Museveni said, urging African nations to lead opposition to what he termed “the promotion of homosexuality”.
“Africa should provide the lead to save the world from this degeneration and decadence which is really very dangerous for humanity. If people of opposite sex stop appreciating one another, then how will the human race be propagated?” he declared.
Museveni made the remarks while meeting an international delegation of anti-gay members of parliament, lobbyists and evangelicals from a selection of African countries who converged in Entebbe, Uganda, for a two-day Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty with the theme “Protecting African Culture and Family Values’”
In response to Museveni’s remarks at the anti-gay conference, Ugandan human rights lawyer Nicholas Opiyo told the international media that:
“Their claim about African family values is only a ‘dog whistle’, a hate campaign and an imposition of a narrow Christian worldview upon us all. Once again, the Ugandan gay community is a target of this misinformation, hate and culture wars.”
Opiyo said:
“The wave of homophobia and transphobia in Uganda and the region has nothing to do with Ugandan or African values. It is a disguised campaign by American evangelicals through their local actors. Their campaigns have now been organized under what appears to be local professional entities such as Christian lawyers’ groups, parliamentary forums and so forth.”
Museveni used the meeting to make his first public comments on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 since it was passed by Parliament last month.
He praised the Ugandan Parliament for passing it but did not give an assurance that he would sign it into law, a commitment that his guests were dying to hear.
He instead told them that the moment he receives the bill formally he will convene a meeting with Ugandan MPs to harmonize views about it and see how best to protect Ugandan children from homosexuality.
Among the participants at the conference was a renowned Kenyan MP and homophobe, Kaluma Peter, who claimed that homosexuality is a bigger problem to Africa than slavery or colonialism. Like Museveni, he claimed that the future of the human race depends on gay people procreating.
“A person proposing that there should be same-sex marriages or same-sex relationships is a person seeking to wipe out the entire humanity out of the face of this earth,” he said.
Addressing Museveni, he said, “We are very, very happy to see you being firm on this. You give value to our sovereignty as independent states in Africa. You have stood in the gap for Africa. We came to express our gratitude, respect, and salutations to you Your Excellency. So many African states are now coming up with similar Laws. Kenya is drafting the family protection law; Ghana and Malawi and many others,” he stated.
Joto La Jiwe, the author of this article, is a Ugandan correspondent for the African Human Rights Media Network. He writes under a pseudonym. Contact him at info@76crimes.com.
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