They've passed the antigay death penalty bill as a  "Christmas Present" to Ugandans. 

Multi sources

Friendly Atheist


The ‘offense of homosexuality’ includes same-sex sexual acts or being in a gay relationship, and will be prosecuted by life imprisonment.


USA Today among others.

US Evangelist role:  Scott Lively " traveled to Uganda, Latvia and Moldova to warn Christian clergy members to defend their countries against what he says is an onslaught by gay rights advocates based in the West."   ....   Mr. Lively is one of many conservative American evangelicals who were active in Uganda.


Meanwhile, elsewhere in Africa

Liberian Muslims and Christians have found common ground at last...  in their hatred and scapegoating of LGBT people.  Washington Post  A few hundred Liberians representing the Christian and Muslim faiths and civil society organizations gathered here Saturday to launch a campaign to press the government to ban same-sex marriage  Let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya

In Malawi, there was some hope when the antigay laws were expected to be suspended, but thechurches protested and the laws stand.  Malawi's government has back-tracked on its decision to suspend arrests of gays, after churches in the strongly Christian country fiercely criticised the move. ...   Malawi's anti-gay laws have caused friction with Western donors, whose assistance is crucial to propping up the economy of the impoverished southern African nation.  


Location-wise, Jamaica is not Africa, but the syncretic culture inherits a lot from the forced diaspora / historic slave trade from Africa, as much as a lot of US culture inherits a lot from Europe.  Jamaica has been as homophobic, citing christianity, as many African countries.  There is some, barely visible, movement in a better direction.  When the Jamaican prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, was elected last December, she said she would hire a gay person to serve in her cabinet and condemned discrimination. Despite early sympathetic signals, her government has not attempted to repeal the laws...... Jamaica holds the crown for being the worst place in the Americas to be gay


I realize there are equally bad places to be gay = much of the Arab and Muslim worlds.  But much of Africa occupies the geography of Gay Hell and Uganda must be the bottom of the barrel.



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As much as Stephen Fry indicated his love for Uganda during his contribution to the Intelligence Squared debate of a few years ago, as well as considering his sexual preference, I would be very interested in knowing his reaction to this turn of events, and what his response to both the Ugandan people and government would be.

With all the forward steps we are taking in the US, seeing this massive backward move it truly painful and discouraging.

There is mention on Fry's web page.  No reaction from him.  Fry is aware of official Ugandan homophobia.

I don't know anything about Fry so will stop there.

Maybe you can love a place, or some aspects of a culture, or the geographic and natural aspects,  or the history, or a few of the people, and screen out the blood thirst and scapegoating.  I wouldn't want to say "All Ugandans are hate monsters" - that would be simplistic and wrong.  But the leaders are using hate as a tool, and the people, maybe mislead, maybe ignorant, maybe deluded by religion, looking for someone to blame for their bad circumstances, are following willingly.  Macchiavelli would be proud.  Possibly, so would Karl Rove.

Probably?  Based on the last two elections, I'd say that was a slam-dunk!

KW, I don't know the answers to your questions.  The link looks interesting and I will read it.

This map is from the Foreign Policy blog.

Their link goes to a pdf with much more detail but I couldn't find a less blurry map.  This one is hard to read.  Maroon is death penalty.  

Here is another map.  Hover the cursor over countries for a little more detail.

Another map with some comments, similar to the others.

This is relatively good news.  The death penalty provision was dropped.  It's still an awful place and LGBT people will still be persecuted.  I can't imagine how bad it is.  It looks like we can thank President Obama, once again.  This time for placing pressure on Uganda.  I doubt that previous presidents would have done that, and really doubt that the alternative this last election would have done that.


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