Behind Bedroom Doors: Codifying Bigotry into Law

By Stacey Patton

Ugandans don’t like homosexuals.

That simple phrase is a gross understatement to the country’s 500,000 gays and lesbians living in the heavily Muslim and Christian nation of 30 million, where 95% of the population opposes legalizing homosexual acts.  The Ugandan parliament is trying to further crack down on the lives of gays and lesbians as it debates a draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would require its citizens to peep behind bedroom doors and tell on people who engage in “unnatural” consensual sex.

Uganda has the world’s strictest sanctions against sexual minorities and allows men and women to be arbitrarily arrested and detained, tortured by police, taunted and harassed by neighbors, dismissed from jobs, and even publicly burned by mobs.  In recent months, some media outlets in that country have published reports on how to spot gays, while top religious leaders have called for homosexuals to be rounded up, banished to an island, and left to die.

Last July, a writer for the government-owned New Vision wrote: “The police should visit the holes mentioned in the press, spy on the perverts, arrest and prosecute them. Relevant government departments must outlaw or restrict websites, magazines, newspapers and television channels promoting immorality—including homosexuality, lesbianism, pornography, etc.”

A clause in the new 40-page anti-homosexual bill introduced in mid October by David Bahati, the Ndowa West Minister of Parliament, has stirred international controversy because it calls for deepening repressions.

• Gays and lesbians convicted of gay sex acts would be sentenced to life in prison.  The penalty also extends to those who merely touch another person with the intent of engaging in homosexual sex and for those who contract a same-sex marriage.
• Gays and lesbians who test positive for HIV can be executed.
• Homosexuals who have sex with a minor, or engage in homosexual sex more than once, may also receive the death penalty.
• The bill forbids the “promotion of homosexuality,” which effectively bans organizations from promoting HIV and AIDS prevention.
• Anyone who knows of homosexual activity taking place but does not report it within 24 hours can face up to three years in prison.
• The law also applies to Ugandans who participate in same-sex acts in countries where it is legal.  Violators are supposed to be extradited back to Uganda and convicted.

The bill has gained widespread support from faith-based groups.  Bahati and his supporters maintain that the bill is a response to growing concerns about the erosion of traditional family values.   Some politicians have also argued that the debate in parliament over the bill is “democracy at work.”  President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s response has been largely muted, but he has blamed Europeans for funding and promoting homosexuality in his country.

Pro-gay supporters and human rights organizations fear that the passage of this bill would create multitudes of exiles, as gays and lesbians flee the country for fear of prosecution.  They also argue that the bill would strike a blow to the fight against HIV/AIDS by denying gay and bisexual men access to condoms and safer sex advice, driving countless numbers of people underground and creating even more stigma, discrimination and oppression.

Bahati has told numerous reporters that he is confident that the bill will be enacted, despite the controversy it has created internationally.  He also lashed out at human rights organizations for focusing on just one clause to campaign against his Bill.

“There have been attacks from gays and their sympathizers and our (Uganda’s) donors have put pressure on government. They have used the suggested clause on aggravated homosexuality, which was an import from already passed act on defilement, to alarm people that the Bill is about killing gays. This is a distortion of facts,” he said.

If the bill passes, human rights groups have called on Western nations to withhold aid from Uganda, which could mean political and economic suicide for the country since 40% of its budget comes from international aid.

Peeping Tomism: A Global Phenomenon

Much of the territory on issues surrounding sexuality in Uganda and other countries is uncharted and full of contradictory attitudes, impulses and laws.  The controversy over the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill in that country begs for some discussion on the most recent defeats of marriage equality in Maine, New York and most likely New Jersey in the coming months.

It is fair to say that those defeats have been in reaction to the liberalization of laws expanding the rights of gays and lesbians in numerous areas, from military service and same-sex unions to adoptions and the passage of hate crime legislation in some states.  Paradoxically, this negative reaction is a necessary dynamic towards progress.

Looking at the Uganda situation begs a significant and yet provocative question: Is the United States that far ahead on the homosexual question than the rest of Africa, the Caribbean Islands, or the Arab world?  Simply put, is it better to be a homosexual in New York City than in the Sudan, or Iran, or Jamaica, or South Africa?  And what does exploring that difference or those global degrees of discrimination mean?

Let us consider the African continent, for example:

In Africa, like elsewhere in the world, laws surrounding homosexuality vary by country and region, on everything from same-sex marriage to anti-discrimination laws in public accommodations.  In North Africa, homosexual acts are criminalized in 6 countries and the penalties range from 6 months to 5 years in prison.  Sudan executes some violators.

Eleven West African countries punish gays and lesbians with prison terms ranging from 6 months to 14 years, while 5 countries have legalized homosexual acts with a few remaining unclear on laws pertaining to lesbians.  Nigerian areas under Sharia law, implement the death penalty for men and 50 lashes and up to 6 months in prison for women.  Sierra Leone requires verification that a woman is a lesbian before she can be prosecuted.  It is unclear how that verification process works.

In middle Africa, 6 of 9 countries have legalized homosexual sex.  The penalty for violators in Angola is up to five years hard labor.  Like in the northern and western part of the continent, African gays and lesbians in this region do not have the right to marry, adopt children, serve openly in the military, or enjoy certain protections in the work place.

There are a few signs of progress in some East African countries.  While gay men in Kenya, Seychelles, Zambia, and Zimbabwe can be imprisoned up to 14 years, lesbian sex is not illegal.  Madagascar and Rwanda have decriminalized homosexual acts altogether, while Mozambique and Mauritus have passed some anti-discrimination legislation.  Réunion bans all forms of discrimination, allows military service, and allows single gays to adoption children.

While there continue to be numerous reports of anti-gay violence, particularly “corrective rapes” against lesbians in South Africa, the country is actually far ahead of the rest of the continent and even the United States when it comes to the equalization of gay rights.  South Africa has been recognizing same-sex unions since 1996 and same-sex marriages since 2006 while the recognition of same-sex unions in the U.S. varies by state and only 5 states currently recognize same-sex marriages.  Same-sex adoptions have been legal in South Africa since 2002.  In the U.S., single gay persons may adopt but the laws vary by state on adoptions by gay couples.  South Africa bans all anti-gay discrimination while 20 states in the U.S. ban anti-gay discrimination and 13 states ban discrimination by gender identity.

Pointing out the degrees of difference ought not to lead us to say that discrimination in one part of the world is less or more evil than in others.  The point is that the link between all these situations is how bigotry gets codified in the law.  Comparing global manifestations of hate helps us understand and refute arguments against equal treatment for sexual minorities everywhere.

Stacey Patton is the Senior Editor and Writer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.