The Christian Right’s New Global War on Gays

As other posts on this blog have noted, as the American Christofascists have been steadily losing the culture war over gay rights and marriage equality, they have been increasingly focusing their efforts on exporting the extreme religious beliefs and anti-gay animus overseas.   The Trojan horse that they are using for this endeavor is "protecting the natural family" which translates to opposing abortion, contraception, divorce (at least in theory) and, most importantly, gay equality and marriage.  Leading the export of ignorance and religious intolerance is the World Congress of Families (WCF) which defines the "natural family" as "centered around the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage."  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at WCF's insideous throcratic agenda.  Here are excerpts:

The news looks bad for America’s conservative rear-guard. This month’s decision by the Supreme Court may soon make marriage equality the law of the land. Over three-quarters of Americans support anti-discrimination protection for gays and lesbians. One of our star athletes (and a Republican!) has transitioned her gender to overwhelming (though not universal) applause.
Does the Christian Right have a Plan B?

You bet they do. Their main weapon is an unfamiliar term: “natural family.” And they’re going to use it to beat back advances in women’s and LGBT equality worldwide, starting at the UN.

Since 1948, the United Nations has stated that the family is “the natural and fundamental group unit of society.” It makes policies and appropriates funds with that in mind.
But whose family? Does the term (and the policy and the money) only cover Mom-and-Pop nuclear families? Does it include single parents and kids? Gay families? Extended families? Families of choice?

These parameters are not just semantic, because they dictate policy. If “family” means a heterosexual couple with as many children as possible, then policies like family planning and LGBT equal rights should be opposed, if (a big if) they have a negative impact on families thus defined. If “family” is a broader term, then those same policies should be promoted.

These issues came to a head in 1994, designated the “Year of the Family” by both the United Nations and the Vatican. . . .In fact, progressives had sought to make 1994 the Year of the Families, plural. Conservatives successfully beat that back, but between pluralism and support for reproductive freedom, 1994 was a wakeup call.

“Natural family” was one response. As defined by its leading promoter, conservative activist Allan Carlson, the “natural family” is a small, conservative subset of actual families. It is “centered around the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage,” and is for the purpose of “ensuring the full physical and emotional development of children.”  Although this definition is at variance with the Biblical institution of polygamy and concubinage, it nonetheless became the central value of the World Congress of Families (WCF), founded by Carlson in 1997 . . . . 

One of WCF’s biggest successes is Russia. Beginning in the 1990s, Carlson and his Russian counterparts—conservative sociologists at Lomonosov Moscow State University—melded American “family values” conservatism with Russian concerns about a “demographic winter.” One result was the first WCF conference, in 1997, and its declaration that, in Parke’s words, “condemned policies that subvert ‘the legal and religious status of traditional marriage,’ as well as those that promote contraception and abortion, ‘state welfare systems,’ comprehensive sexual education, nonmarital cohabitation, ‘homosexual unions,’ and single parenting.”

[A]s it happens, there is no demographic winter—in Russia or anywhere else. What there is, both in Russia and the United States, is a demographic shift toward, bluntly speaking, more brown people and fewer white people. This is what the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin’s revanchist circle are fighting—and the WCF is happy to help.

Inside Russia, WCF helped pass the notorious Anti-Propaganda Law, banning gays from any public displays of existence, and wrote the ban on gay adoption.  

[A]t the UN, Russia has blocked every effort to recognize multiple forms of family—most recently in June 2014 . . . “It is part of a broader agenda led by the U.S. Religious Right aimed at cementing a patriarchal and heteronormative family structure as the fundamental unit of society, and then using that as a tool to advance conservative, right-wing social policies through the UN and other international organizations.”

[At the 2015 WCF assembly in Salt Lakr City] the cast of characters will be the same: Russian and African far-rightists, together with WCF partners Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Americans United For Life.  Not surprisingly, the theme of the conference will be “religious liberty.”

There are plenty of reasons to take these wingnuts seriously. First, there’s a lot of money: oligarch/Putin money in Russia, conservative foundation money here. Second, the governments of Russia and many Global South countries are actively hostile to LGBT people, blaming them for every problem under the sun, from Ebola to Hollywood movies. Third, they may have the votes at the UN—as they did last year in Geneva.

It’s entirely possible that LGBTs and women throughout the world will suffer a backlash because of advances in rights for gay people and women in the US and Europe. That means those advocates in the West shouldn’t get too carried away with themselves. Opponents of equality are just getting started.

Religious conservatives remain a cancer on society and the world.  As throughout history, they continue to market hate, discord and theocracy at the expense of human rights and science and knowledge. 

Having Lost in America, NOM to Go Global to Keep Money Coming In

I said it before and I will say it again, the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") and its allied "family values" organizations like Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association (and The Family Foundation here in Virginia), etc., are parasites that prey on the ignorant and uneducated and fan the flames of hate, bigotry, and more subtly, racism. Having largely lost the culture war on same sex marriage in America - the final nail in the coffin will hopefully be delivered by the U.S. Supreme Court in late June - NOM is now going to go global.  While officially stating other reasons, the real reason for the move is that Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher and others have become too accustomed to living well while marketing hatred and homophobia.  Heaven forbid that they get real jobs that do something productive for society.  BuzzFeed looks at NOM's announcement that it will go global in the spread of lies and homophobia.  Here are excerpts:

The National Organization for Marriage is continuing to work towards the creation of an International Organization for Marriage, NOM President Brian Brown told BuzzFeed News in an interview just before the start of NOM’s March for Marriage in Washington on Saturday.

A planning meeting was held around last year’s March for Marriage, convening members of groups opposed to marriage equality from around 70 countries to begin working to that goal, BuzzFeed News reported last spring. This year’s march does not feature the international speakers that last year’s did, perhaps because of the pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling on state bans on same-sex marriage.

Although “we have our hands full here in the U.S.” at the moment, Brown said, the group was “definitely” still working to establish “an organization that focuses on uniting people of different faiths and different backgrounds internationally” to oppose same-sex marriage. 

Brown wasn’t certain of when an International Organization for Marriage would officially launch, but said, “I think there will be a formal launch” at some point. . . . . Brown said an international group is needed to counter the influence of organizations like the International Lesbian and Gay Association, which he said has had great “success” at advancing LGBT rights at the United Nations and the European Union.

Fundamentalist Christianity  - and other fundamentalist faiths - is a cancer on the world that needs to be eradicated.   Thankfully, more and more Americans seem to be coming to recognize this reality.

Jeb Bush Hires Anti-Muslim, Anti-Gay Extremist

So much for Jeb Bush's pretense of being the GOP "moderate."  After hiring a gay communications director - one has to wonder what that individual is now thinking - Bush has reportedly hired Jordan Sekulow, a far right Christian extremist as part of Jebbie's campaign staff.  The take away?  That Bush is only too happy to prostitute himself to the ugliest elements of the Republican Party base.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at Sekulow's ugly track record which doesn't bode well for anyone hoping that the GOP might regain some shred of sanity.  Here are excerpts:

He [Sekulow] frequently appears on right-wing television to pontificate—his face caked with makeup, hair gelled back, suit shining, and double chin taking on a life of its own—about a wide range of topics, from Christian persecution to conservative persecution. On social media, he branded those behind the proposed Ground Zero Mosque “terrorists.” And in his capacity as executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, televangelist Pat Robertson’s snake oil mega-mall of right-wing legal causes, he has lobbied foreign governments to ban homosexuality and fought efforts to allow exceptions to anti-abortion laws when the life of the mother is at risk.

And on Friday, he announced he’s going to work for Jeb Bush. That’s right, Sekulow will be a senior adviser to the political action committee of the likely Republican presidential candidate most often labeled a moderate.

While Bush has not endorsed Sekulow’s extreme anti-gay position, Salon’s Luke Brinker notes that he also has not “staked out positions substantially at odds with those taken by Sekulow and the ACLJ.”

Until this point, Bush’s hires have done nothing but bolster his moderate reputation—especially on the issue of marriage equality.

In 2012, when Sekulow and his father, Jay, chief counsel for the ACLJ and geriatric rocker, were advising the Romney campaign, it was reported by Mother Jones’ Andy Kroll that the pair had opened their own ACLJ offices in Africa to lobby local officials. In Zimbabwe, where homosexuality was outlawed in 2006, they “pushed an agenda that backs outlawing same-sex marriage and making sure that homosexuality ‘remain[s] a criminal activity.’” The younger Sekulow, the publication reported, traveled to Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, to lobby officials in person. The father-son duo made similar anti-gay lobbying efforts in Russia.

In hiring Sekulow, Bush is extending an olive branch to the far-right, but he is also perhaps damaging himself should he make it to the general.

Sekulow has dabbled in islampahobia, even supporting anti-Sharia law measures in Oklahoma.

U.S. Kicks Gambia From Trade Agreement Over Anti-LGBT Crackdown

As noted many times on this blog, as the Christofascists have seen more and more defeats in America and Western Europe, they have been increasing their efforts to export anti-gay animus and bigotry to ignorant, uneducated corners of the world where the populous is literally to stupid and uneducated to realize that they are being sold a bogus bill of goods, often with the aid of corrupt and incompetent governments all too eager to distract local populations from the chronic miasma of government misrule.   A case in point is Gambia where a virtual jihad against gays is underway.  Thankfully, the U.S. government is using its trade powers to strike back at the anti-gay bigotry and has kicked Gambia from participation special trade status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000.  More actions like this need to be taken.  If nations want to act like reactionary extremists, then there needs to be a tangible cost attached to their bigotry.  Here are highlights from BuzzFeed:

The United States on Tuesday dropped the Gambia from a popular free trade agreement in response to a crackdown on LGBT rights and other human rights concerns. 

The decision to drop the small West African nation from special trade status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000 came late Tuesday afternoon, just after media in the Gambia announced that three men would be put on trial for homosexuality. These are the first to face trial since police began arresting people on allegations of homosexuality in November. At least 16 more are known to be in detention, and Gambian human rights activists do not know if they are even still alive.

“The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has been monitoring the human rights situation in The Gambia for the past few years, with deepening concerns about the lack of progress with respect to human rights, rule of law, political pluralism, and the right to due process,” said Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House, in an email to BuzzFeed News. “In addition, in October, Gambian President Jammeh signed into law legislation that further restricts the rights of LGBT individuals, including life imprisonment for so-called ‘aggravated homosexuality.’ Reports have surfaced of arrests, detention, and torture of individuals because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”

For the first time the gay community really is coming together to get equal consideration in U.S. foreign policy,” said Mark Bromley of the Council for Global Equality, which lobbies for LGBT rights in international affairs. Bromley said that only in recent years have LGBT groups been able to exert the kind of influence that certain religious or ethnic communities have exerted to focus the U.S.’s foreign policy when their counterparts in other countries are under threat.

The meeting that Gambian human rights activists held with White House officials earlier this month — which was facilitated in part by the Council for Global Equality — was the first time they say they had met with anyone above the level of a State Department desk officer to discuss Jammeh’s human rights record.

Expelling the Gambia from the special trade status was the first time that the U.S. had sent the kind of signal that Jammeh will take seriously in response to human rights abuses, Camara said.

“Jammeh [will] know that the US is really not joking not now,” Camara said. Until now, “he was really playing with them” and behaving as if there were no consequences for violating human rights protections. Among the dozens who have been killed or disappeared under his rule are two American citizens believed to have been abducted by Jammeh’s security forces in 2013.

As I said, it is far past time that corrupt tyrants like Jammeh be deprived of any and all deference as a head of state and that nations bear direct economic consequences for the human rights abuses of their leaders.   Indeed, if these leaders are going to act like animals, they needed to be treated like animals and their countrymen need to bear the consequences of embracing ignorance and bigotry.    

Oh, and the same goes for America which needs to put Bush, Cheney, et al, on trial for war crimes and punish them accordingly - why do the words "death penalty" spring to mind when i think of Cheney?  If America wants to punish those who are guilty of human rights abuses around the world, we need to start at home.

The Christofascists Nerve Center: The World Congress of Families

The fruits of WCF's export of hate in Russia

As it commits atrocities and pushes for genocide against those who do not subscribe to its perverted and hated based form of Islam, it claims to be supporting the true pure message of the Koran.  Jump thousands of miles to the west and one finds another organization which makes the promotion of hatred towards targeted groups its main agenda under the guise of furthering "Biblical values."  While not engaging directly in horrifically violence itself - at least not yet - it encourages others to engage in legalistic and physical acts of violence.  The organization?  The World Congress of Families ("WCF"), the main exporter of Christofascist hate across the globe.   The Human Rights Campaign has compiled a report that details the heinous work of WCF and its deadly tentacles extending across the globe.  Here are highlights from HRC's press release announcing the release of the report (the full report can be found here):

Labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and active in several nations across five continents, the Rockford, IL-based World Congress of Families (WCF) has organized large international “pro-family” conventions that bring together the most fringe activists engaged in anti-LGBT extremism since 1997.  In July, WCF announced that its next annual international convention will take place in Salt Lake City, making it the first ever hosted on American soil.

“The World Congress of Families coordinates a dangerous group of activists spreading anti-LGBT rhetoric and promoting laws and policies that criminalize LGBT people and the speech of those who support them,” said Ty Cobb, HRC Foundation’s Director of Global Engagement.  “They praise Vladimir Putin as the standard-bearer for traditional ‘family values’ and honored a Nigerian activist who claims LGBT advocates conspire with the terrorist group Boko Haram with a “Woman of the Year” award.  Their advocacy abroad harms LGBT people from Russia to Nigeria and beyond.  Hate is not an American value, and we must expose and work to stop the World Congress of Families and their extremist allies.”

Uganda, Russia, and Nigeria have enacted horrific anti-LGBT laws within the past year, and LGBT people in those countries have suffered vicious and violent backlashes in their wake. This includes harassment, discrimination, prosecution, public beatings, and murder. WCF and its affiliates are connected to anti-LGBT advocacy in each of the three countries, among many others.

WCF affiliate Scott Lively traveled repeatedly to Uganda claiming that LGBT people are responsible for the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and the spread of HIV/AIDS.  Some Ugandan officials credit Lively with the idea of introducing new legislation to further criminalize homosexuality in the country, and prominent Ugandan LGBT activists say the "bill is essentially his creation."  WCF also forcefully advocated for the draconian anti-LGBT Russian law, met with the law’s author in the Russian Duma, and released a public letter in support of the measure. WCF has also repeatedly hosted events in Nigeria with “pro-family” activists from Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.

“Their harmful impact is being felt in nearly every corner of the globe, and we urge all fair-minded Americans to reject the World Congress of Families and their exportation of anti-LGBT hate.”

Not surprisingly, many of WCF's allies comprise a who's who of American Christofascists, the Mormon Church and the hypocrites in the Knights of Columbus who engage in the equivalent of fellatio with high Catholic Church clerics who aided and abetted sexual predators among the Catholic clergy and engaged tome and time again in the obstruction of justice.   Here are a few telling quotes from the report:

WCF describes itself as “an alliance of orthodox believers, based on their commitment to Judeo-Christian values and the natural family.” It has ties to several religious organizations, including the Knights of Columbus, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Russian Orthodox Church. Speakers at WCF meetings have included representatives from the Southern Baptist Convention, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, and the Center for Family Ministries.

WCF partners are some of the largest and most influential conservative groups in America and throughout the world — including Focus on the Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, American Family Association, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and National Right to Life Committee. A 2001 conference in Washington, D.C., was sponsored by, among others, the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation, the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Concerned Women for America, the Brigham Young University Management Society and Southern Virginia University.

WCF has done much to fan the flames of this frightening increase in homophobia and Transphobia. According to Mother Jones , “the rise of anti-gay laws in Russia has mirrored, almost perfectly, the rise of WCF’s work in the country.”  Indeed, WCF takes full credit for the rise of anti-choice and anti-LGBT sentiment and legislation in Russia.

WCF has also been working for years to block marriage equality in Australia. Legislative efforts against equality coincide with WCF’s presence in the country. WCF officials have been traveling to Australia since 2008, and the seventh World Congress was held in Sydney, Australia, in May 2013.

Read the whole report.  WCF is an insidious organization.  Worse yet, it and many of its partners parade themselves as tax-exempt charities.   They all need to lose their tax exempt status and be treated as hate groups by decent, moral people. 

How US Evangelicals Helped Create Russia's Anti-Gay Movement

Increasingly it seems wherever one sees oppression towards gays and brutality towards common citizens one also sees the finger prints of American Christofascists who are exporting hate, bigotry and ignorance at a record pace.   Corrupt regimes in Africa - many of which need to distract an ignorant population from their gross misrule - are aided and abetted by American Christofacists.  Wherever repression occurs, the American Christofascists seem to be there.  Russia is a case in point where American Christofascists  have teemed up with reprehensible leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church to support Vladimir Putin's dictatorship and used anti-gay extremism as a distraction to shift focus from Putin's misrule.   A piece in Mother Jones looks at the foul role played by American Christofascists in Russia.  Here are excerpts:

In November 2010, Russia's Sanctity of Motherhood organization kicked off its first-ever national conference. The theme, according to its organizers, was urgent: solving "the crisis of traditional family values" in a modernizing Russia. The day opened with a sextet leading 1,000 swaying attendees in a prayer. Some made the sign of the cross, others bowed or raised their arms to the sky before settling into the plush red and gold seats of the conference hall at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral.

On the second morning of the conference, the only American in attendance, a tall, collected man, stepped up for his speech. Larry Jacobs, vice president of the Rockford, Illinois-based World Congress of Families (WCF), an umbrella organization for the US religious right's heavy hitters, told the audience that American evangelicals had a 40-year track record of "defending life and family" and they hoped to be "true allies" in Russia's traditional values crusade.

The gathering marked the beginning of the family values fervor that has swept Russia in recent years. Warning that low birth rates are a threat to the long-term survival of the Russian people, politicians have been pushing to restrict abortion and encourage bigger families. Among the movement's successes is a law that passed last summer and garnered global outrage in the run-up to the Sochi Winter Olympics, banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors," a vague term that has been seen as effectively criminalizing any public expression of same-sex relationships.

Anti-gay groups have made tormenting the LGBT community a national and organized affair: Vigilante gangs have used social media to lure hundreds of gay people to fake dates and then disseminate videos of them being beaten or sexually humiliated, garnering hundreds of thousands of followers. Arrests and beatings at gay rights demonstrations are commonplace. This month, LGBT activists were arrested in Moscow and St. Petersburg hours before the Olympic opening ceremony and have been detained in Sochi itself.

Since Jacobs first traveled to Russia for the Sanctity of Motherhood conference, he and his WCF colleagues have returned regularly to bolster Russia's nascent anti-gay movement—and to work with powerful Russian connections that they've acquired along the way. In 2014, the World Congress of Families will draw an international group of conservative activists together in Moscow, a celebratory convening that Jacobs foreshadowed on that first visit, when he ended his speech triumphantly: "Together, we can win!"

WCF has since put on conferences in Europe, Mexico, and Australia that have been attended by thousands. The group has deep ties with the most powerful organizations in America's religious right, including Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, and Americans United for Life. These groups and many others pay $2,500 annually to be WCF partners, and some give additional funds—Focus, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute each chipped in $20,000 to help put on the 2012 World Congress in Madrid. In Russia, they've tapped the support of the nation's religious right and its billionaire sponsors.

Since 2010, WCF has helped host at least five major gatherings in Russia where American evangelicals put their views before Russian audiences.
These gatherings have helped WCF's American leaders establish tight relationships with key Russian government officials, like Duma member Elena Mizulina, the country's foremost anti-gay legislator, who has met with Jacobs in Moscow at least three times and is a frequent attendee at WCF events. This June, National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown, who serves on WCF's Moscow 2014 planning committee, flew to Russia two days after the lower chamber of parliament approved her gay propaganda ban to meet with Mizulina about crafting her next piece of landmark legislation, a gay-adoption ban.

WCF has lent its support to anti-gay politics elsewhere in Eastern Europe—Serbia, Lithuania, Romania—but it has had its biggest and most notable successes in Russia. Indeed, the rise of anti-gay laws in Russia has mirrored, almost perfectly, the rise of WCF's work in the country, with 13 new anti-gay laws passed since Jacobs first traveled there. When I ask Jacobs if WCF's work has contributed to this pattern, he laughs and says, "Yes, I think that is accurate."

Russians have increasingly adopted the kind of language the American religious right has long deployed to fight acceptance of homosexuality—terms like "natural family," "traditional values," and "protecting children," with rarely a mention of the word "gay."

[E]lements of the US religious right have come to see Russia as a redoubt in a global battle against homosexuality. "The Russians," Jacobs has said, "might be the Christian saviors of the world."

That's in large part due to the Russian Orthodox Church's immense political influence. Post-Soviet Russia saw a huge revival in Orthodoxy after communism's restrictions were lifted, and harsh new economic realities increased the appeal of the faith. By making common cause with the church and its goals, Putin has not only cast his regime's opponents as enemies of Russian tradition, but shored up his popularity: Today, about 90 percent of Russians identify as Orthodox. The church is a marker of national identity, a source of political endorsements, and an official participant in the legislative process: In a 2009 agreement with Putin's ruling United Russia party, the country's top Orthodox official, Patriarch Kirill, won the right to review (and suggest changes to) any legislation being considered by the Duma. Since then, both Putin and Patriarch Kirill have stated explicitly and repeatedly that they believe in collaboration between church and state—a partnership that is helping to drive the government's campaign against homosexuality.

"We don't even use the word 'gay.' We use the word 'homosexualists,'" Archpriest Dmitri explains. "What's 'gay' about it? I think it's pretty sad, actually. We see homosexualism as a sin. And not just homosexualism, but also alcoholism, drug use, murder of people on the streets, or robbing a bank."

The commission has worked closely with Mizuluna's Duma committee on family policy, and confers with a variety of international organizations; of these, Dmitri says, "our main connection is the World Congress of Families."

There is much more to the story that needs to be read in full to understand the pervasive evil being done by American Christofascists.  It should be of little surprise that they are teaming up with dictators and corrupt tyrants since fundamentalist Christianity is all about the control and repression of others who have been given the label of "sinner."  It is a very ugly picture.

 

Uganda President Museveni Blocks Anti-Gay Bill

In what some - especially among American Christofascist who have invested heavily in exporting homophobia to Africa - may see as a surprising move, Yoweri Museveni (pictured at right), the president of Uganda, has blocked an extreme anti-gay bill passed by the Uganda Parliament.   Even more interestingly, he has confronted Speaker Rebecca Kadaga concerning irregularities in the manner that she rammed the anti-gay measure through Parliament without further study on the measure as requested.  While not mentioned, Museveni may well have also been conscious of the widespread condemnation that Uganda has been receiving from western nations, many of which provide significant aid to Uganda.  Whatever Museveni's motives, it is good fortune that this bill which would have condemned gays to possible life imprisonment has been short circuited at least for the time being. The Daily Monitor looks at the development.  Here are excerpts:

Parliament- President Museveni has confronted Speaker Rebecca Kadaga for passing the controversial Anti-gays Bill without quorum and described homosexuals as “abnormal” beings who can be “rescued” through economic empowerment.

In an eight-page letter to Speaker and MPs dated December 28, 2013, the President said he was forced to contrite on the issue by “a small group of our MPs, led by Hon Kadaga” who forced through the Bill even after he had advised to shelve it until the government had studied it in depth.

“Some elements, however, insisted and even without quorum of Parliament, passed it,” the President said. “How can you pass law without the quorum of Parliament after it has been pointed out? What sort of Parliament is this? How can Parliament be the one to break the Constitution and the Law repeatedly?”

The President said the rescue for homosexuals is first and foremost, economic, focusing on rapidly industrialised Uganda, modernisation of agriculture etc. By delaying government projects needed to create jobs for the unemployed youth, the President said the MPs are exposing the unemployed youth or “impecunious students” to the risks of homosexuality and other temptations.

“Even with legislation, they will simply go underground and continue practicing homosexuality or lesbianism for mercenary reasons,” he said.

The President said he would support a life sentence for one who lures normal youth into “these disgusting behaviours” – especially homosexuality. He said the NRM Caucus will find a scientifically correct position on the proposed anti-gay legislation.

Let us hope that this is not merely a temporary set back for the American Christofascist backed hate merchants inside and outside of the Ugandan Parliament.  A friend is currently working in Uganda and to say that the country is an economic and social basket case is an understatement.  For many MP's this fixation on gays is merely a way to distract an ignorant and gullible populace from realizing that one of Uganda's biggest problems is its corrupt and incompetent government.  Of course a corrupt government and ignorant population are the perfect fertile ground for the lies and untruths marketed by American Christofascists.  As the lose the so-called culture wars in America, these modern day Pharisees are seeking to export hate overseas.

 

Uganda Passes Foul Anti-Gay Law; Gays Now Face Life Imprisonment

Backwardness, ignorance and bigotry rule in Uganda

While progress is being made for equality in Cuba, New Mexico and even Utah, things in Uganda and other parts of Africa are grim.  Uganda has just passed an anti-gay law that will leave gays facing the possibility of life imprisonment.  It bears repeating that American Christofascists played a large role in whipping up anti-gay hysteria.  Having largely lost their anti-gay jihad in America, these foul individuals and organizations set their sights on backward, ignorant areas of Africa as fertile ground for the toxic agenda of hate and bigotry.  Among the lies disseminated by the "godly folk" is the lie that gays prey on children.  Never mind that most pedophiles are heterosexual males.  Hate, hypocrisy, and bigotry are what conservative Christianity is all about nowadays.  It is a cancer that needs to be eradicated.  Towleroad has details on the vicious law passed in Uganda:

Despite previous failed attempts to pass the so-called "Kill the Gays" bill, the Ugandan parliament has today successfully passed an amended version of the legislation that criminalizes "aggravated homosexuality" though removes the death penalty as a punishment, opting instead to imprison offenders for life should they suffer the maximum penalty. The AP has the report:
 

Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda under a colonial-era law that criminalised sexual acts "against the order of nature", but the Ugandan politician who wrote the new law argued that tough new legislation was needed because gay people from the west threatened to destroy Ugandan families and were allegedly "recruiting" Ugandan children into gay lifestyles.

The Ugandan gay community has disputed this account, saying that Ugandan political and religious leaders had come under the influence of American evangelicals who wanted to spread their anti-gay campaign in Africa. They have singled out Scott Lively, a Massachusetts evangelical,who they sued in March 2012 under the Alien Tort Statute that allows non-citizens to file suit in the US if there is an alleged violation of international law...

Despite criticism of the bill abroad, it was highly popular among a lot of Ugandans who said the country had the right to pass laws that protect its children.

One can only hope that western nations will severe all aid to Uganda and leave it to suffer the consequences of its embrace of ignorance and bigotry.  Uganda is a political and social hell hole - I have a friend who is working there - which deserves every misfortune that befalls it.

American Christofascists Continue to Export Homophobia Overseas

Faced with being on the wrong side of history here in America where the acceptance of gays and gay marriage is growing, American Christofascist organizations are exporting their lies and anti-gay bigotry overseas, both to Africa and in areas of the former Soviet Union.  Some, like Brian Brown of the National Organization for marriage - a hate group in all but formal designation - are even boasting about their role in Russia's extreme anti-gay laws.  Besides their quest to impose their fear and hate based religious beliefs on all, I suspect that these hate merchants have another motive as well: money.  With their anti-gay agenda steadily losing in America, they need new flocks of sheeple to shake down so they can continue to live the good life.  Joe Jervis looks at NOM's involvement in the spread of hatred overseas.  Here are excerpts:

As we know, hate group leaders Brian Brown and Scott Lively are conspirators in Russia's pogrom against its own LGBT citizens. But the virulently anti-gay World Congress Of Families didn't only meet in Moscow last week. Via press release today:

On October 13, the delegation met in Kiev with representatives of parents groups from all over the country. The meeting was organized by Alexandar Skvortsov, co-chairman of the umbrella group, All Ukrainian Parents Committee. The Ukrainian leaders expressed concern about the pressure brought to bear on their nation to accede to the homosexual agenda (including "gay marriage") as a condition for membership in the European Union. They also noted the moral decline in society reflected in pornography (of which the Ukraine is one of the leaders internationally) and prostitution. They complained about sexual indoctrination in the schools -- in the guise of teaching sex education -- and showed the WCF leaders a booklet used for this purpose that's graphic in both content and illustrations. The same WCF leaders were in Belgrade on September 28, for a rally and family march, including as many as 10,000 participants, according to an AP report.

NOT by coincidence, on the very day that WCF was in Belgrade, city leaders abruptly banned that day's planned gay pride parade, "citing security concerns over threats of violence by the neo-Nazi groups who battled hundreds of riot police at Belgrade Pride 2010."

Conservative Christianity is a virulent poison that needs to be eradicated from  politics and polite society.  Hate, division, violence and brutality are too often its principal fruits.  Folks like Brown are not nice people and need to become pariahs. 

The Need for Global LGBT Cooperation Against Anti-Gay U.S. Evangelical Extremists

As has been noted frequently on this blog, as their fortunes have dimmed in America and gay rights and gay marriage have seen increasing public acceptance and support, American Christofascists has stepped up efforts to export anti-gay hate and bigotry overseas, particularly to Africa, but also to parts of South America and counties that formerly comprised portions of the former Soviet Union.  A piece at The New Civil Rights Movement by the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights argues that LGBT individuals and organizations need to work to form a a unified, cooperative effort worldwide to defeat the Christofascists.  Here are some excerpts:

Martin Luther King famously noted in his Letter from Birmingham Jail that “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” This is particularly true of LGBTQ people in many places around the world whose fates are tied more closely together through the actions of one particular set of actors: extremist U.S. evangelicals in the business of exporting a virulent anti-gay agenda.

While 2013 has been a year of once unthinkable strides forward in the U.S., with rapidly shifting public opinion and breakthroughs on marriage equality, a look beyond our own borders reveals a different, but related trend in the opposite direction. In the very week that President Obama proclaimed our national journey towards freedom went through “Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall,” the Russian Duma passed a bill – by a vote of 390 — 1 – which would criminalize advocacy by and on behalf of LGBT people. While these events may seem unrelated, a deeper look uncovers a disturbing relationship between the advances in civil rights in the U.S. and the growing efforts to criminalize LGBTQ existence in Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America.

Anti-gay extremists in the U.S. who have long devoted themselves to fear-mongering about the “homosexual agenda” have sought new markets abroad. As Rev. Dr. Kapya Koama, the leading researcher of this phenomenon, put it in the American Prospect, “It is homophobia, not homosexuality, that is being imported to the [African] continent by neocolonialists with an agenda: to spread U.S. culture wars worldwide.”

Exhibit A is Rev. Scott Lively, president of Abiding Truth Ministries. In the U.S., his organization is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, but in Uganda, Lively has been free from such baggage and has marketed himself as an expert on homosexuality. He has worked with prominent clerics and government officials there since 2002 to advance his rights-erasing strategies  .   .   .   . 

Lively, who  describes  LGBTQ people as evil, genocidal, brutal and above all as child predators, has as his aim the criminalization of advocacy for LGBTQ rights and works to strip away the most fundamental human rights from them. In Uganda, both state repression and extra-legal violence have been on the rise as a result of the anti-gay strategies Lively has helped orchestrate. 


While the destructive role of U.S. evangelicals in Uganda has gotten some attention, Uganda is just the tip of the iceberg. Lively himself has been active in several Eastern European countries. 

[T]he anti-gay American Center for Law and Justice, a Pat Robertson outfit, has recently expanded its international presence from Africa to South America, where it has set up shop in Brazil. These anti-gay evangelicals’ efforts, as Lively’s work exemplifies, go beyond fighting civil rights advances to eradicating basic, fundamental rights for LGBTQ people.

Those in the U.S. committed to the full civil and human rights of all people, including LGBTQ people, have a particular obligation in this situation.   .   .   .   .   it is very much our responsibility to speak out and do all we can to keep them from doing further harm. LGBTQ people around the world are fighting for their lives and their rights on their own terms on their own turf. Standing in solidarity with them, our most useful contribution to their struggles is to address the American origins of the attacks on their rights and existence.

American 'Ex-Gay' Movement Exports Global Hate and Harm

Just as Catholicism and religion in general is slowly dying in the developed western world, so too is the marketability of the fraudulent ex-gay industry.  So what does one do in this line of snake oil marketing?  Focus on ignorant undeveloped nations where selling lies and and "faux science" to an ignorant populace is ever so much easier.  The problem is that the American Christofascist exporting of hate involves real threats of physical harm a even death to LGBT individuals.  The Advocate looks at this pernicious phenomenon.  Here are article highlights:

Is the “ex-gay” movement over yet? Certainly not at the global level. Though the movement shows signs of weakening in the United States, international organizations like Exodus Global Alliance still pose a serious threat to public health, human dignity, and human rights. It’s time to take a good look beyond our borders at the widespread influence of the “ex-gay” movement and its impact on the lives of LGBTQ people around the world, with the help of a new report from Political Research Associates, which examines the problems caused by Exodus in Latin America.

The American Psychological Association has made clear that homosexuality is not a disorder and warns that trying to “cure” it can lead to “intimacy avoidance, sexual dysfunction, depression, and suicidality.” Exodus International president Alan Chambers recently denounced the idea of a “cure” for homosexuality. But Exodus International is in fact only the U.S. arm of a global network. Exodus Global Alliance, the umbrella group for Exodus affiliates all over the world, continues to push the harmful idea that “change is possible.”..

Political Research Associates, a think tank devoted to exposing movements that undermine human rights, has been tracking the mutating Christian right’s anti-LGBTQ agenda for some time. In 1998, PRA published Calculated Compassion: How the Ex-Gay Movement Serves the Right’s Attack on Democracy, a report looking at the growing use of the “ex-gay” myth as a “kinder, gentler” face to the Christian right’s anti-LGBTQ agenda.

Since the time that report was written, public opinion has continued to evolve and respect for diversity has increased. But the “ex-gay” movement continues to adapt. In some cases it even has gained more mainstream approval, particularly abroad. In October 2010, Cape Town, South Africa, hosted 4,000 global evangelical leaders from 198 countries for the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, the biggest gathering of global evangelical leaders in modern history. Endorsed by major evangelical figures such as Billy Graham and Rick Warren, Lausanne mingled all sorts of evangelicals from around the world for a rare convening. Among them were members of Exodus Global Alliance, a network of “ex-gay” groups. And not only as observers. The alliance was tasked with leading a discussion on “Sexuality, Truth, and Grace.”

No doubt organizers knew the “ex-gay” topic could be controversial. One journalist was told that organizers deliberately left sessions on homosexuality off the schedule “to avoid pre-conference publicity” — yet “each of their daily sessions were full.”

Exodus Global Alliance puts the face of “Christian compassion” on homophobia — and by hiding in “ex-gay” ministries, prevents governments and psychological associations from cracking down on their “religious liberty” to help those suffering from unwanted same-sex attraction. However, the idea that they are offering solicited aid is specious at best.  

The claim that gays can and should be “healed” is repeated by such antigay Ugandan pastors as Archbishop Henry Orombi (chair of the Africa Host Committee of the 2010 Lausanne Congress) and Martin Ssempa, and politicians like David Bahati, the sponsor of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill.

As the Christian right’s anti-LGBTQ agenda continues to spread globally, we must have a unified and vigilant approach to stopping it. Cross-border solidarity among those challenging “ex-gay” ministries is vital and worth additional investment. U.S. advocates can challenge the international “ex-gay” organizations and the companies that benefit from them.

Like fundamentalist religion, the "ex-gay" ministries are a vile and dangerous evil that must be stamped out.  The ugliness and hate that underlie these  fraudulent "ministries" need to be exposed and proponents shown to be the political and self-enriching whores that they are in fact. There is nothing nice about these people and they deserve no respect or deference.  The exult in ignorance, hate and bigotry.

National Organization for Marriage Takes Hate International

Apparently the National Organization for Marriage is not content with disseminating anti-gay vitriol in America and now plans to expand its efforts to fan the flames of anti-gay animus oversees, including in France which is on the verge of finalizing gay marriage and gay adoption laws.  Blogger friend Jeremy Hooper at NOM Exposed has details and as is always the case with NOM, it's an ugly picture.  The new information also further underscores the ties between NOM and the Roman Catholic Church which might well be the source of the money that NOM seeks to keep hidden from public scrutiny.  Here are some details:

We know that NOM president Brian Brown spent some time in Paris and that one of NOM's social media guys is responsbile for a website rallying opposition against the French marriage bill. But as it turns out (and as many of us supsected), NOM's connections to the French marriage debate run even deeper. Let's examine.

Over the weekend, I got an email from a French activist working closely with the pro-equality side. He said this:

We knew that our french opponents went to the US during winter 2012, but we had no formal clue of the benefits they got from their trip.

But we now know that they use technology from OpusFidelis in direct marketing, quite common for you in the US I suppose (mass postcards mailings), but new here.

And although the opponents here say they are non-political and non-religious, we know for sure, and have proofs, that the Catholic Church has organized everything and is behind the fight.

Just in case you needed the confirmation.

As regular NOM Exposed readers surely know, Opus Fidelis is the Catholic social media firm that handles all of NOM's digital production.

NOM is the deeply Catholic OpusFidelis' star client. That is if you don't count the Vatican itself, which is another one of Opus' clients.  So based on this email, I started digging around a little more to confirm the connections to which my French pal alluded. What I found is pretty darn insightful.

But even more interesting than NOM's obvious connection to this one fight is the line at the bottom of this e-blast which notes that this French version of NOM is actually "a charter member of the International Organization for Marriage." This is news! This seems to be an announcement of a larger umbrella organization that NOM has not yet unveiled—one that will try to export NOM's American divisiveness to whatever nation might have them. France seems to be a step in a sweeping plan.

The thing is, none of us should be surprised to see NOM making this global move. After all, in those same strategy documents that we revealed right here on NOM Exposed one year ago (the ones where NOM told of plans to "drive a wedge between blacks and gays"), NOM made clear its intent to start an international arm:

We know NOM has moved forward with all of the other plans in those strategy documents (including the "drive a wedge" one); this is just a continuation of the international plan, with France being the first chess move in a larger, planetary onslaught on behalf of inequality. Because it's NOM's Earth, apparently—we just get discriminated within it.

NOM is an ugly organization.  I truly hope that soon it is forced by the courts to disclose the seemingly endless source of large donations from a handful of donors.  Should it turn out that the Catholic Church is the principal source of funds it will certainly demonstrate that nothing is changing under Pope Francis in terms of the Church's anti-gay jihad.

Africa's 'First Traditional' Gay Wedding

This blog looks at all the bad things that often face LGBT individuals, much of it driven by hate filled, ignorance embracing religious zealots and the spineless politicians who prostitute themselves to these purveyors of hate and division.  But, from time to time it is nice to look at something positive and down right happy.  Something such as the marriage of Tshepo Cameron Modisane and Thoba Calvin Sithol (pictured above) were married in the town of KwaDukuza in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.  The two 27 year old men  were married in what is being described as a traditional ceremony that united Zulu and Tswana traditions.  On can only imagine the convulsions this must have set off amongst the American Christofascists exporting homophobia to Africa and endeavoring to brainwash Africans into believing that homosexuality is a western world import.   (I find it telling that South Africa is the only nation in Africa that has gay marriage and it is also the only country that isn't a veritable basket case economically and socially - perhaps Uganda could learn a thing or two from South Africa).  Huffington Post and Mambaonline.com both have details.  Here are highlights from HuffPo:

Two men have tied the knot in what's been proclaimed Africa's first traditional gay wedding.  Tshepo Cameron Modisane and Thoba Calvin Sithol were reportedly married in the town of KwaDukuza in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa before some 200 guests, in a ceremony that united Zulu and Tswana traditions. The newlyweds, both 27, will also have a second, more intimate ceremony in Johannesburg later this year, according to reports.

"The great step that we took in our relationship as a gay couple was introducing each other to our families," Tshepo told Mamba Online in February. "We are so blessed to have supportive families who care about us. Even though we are gay they still love us."

The men say they also hope to have children through a surrogate.   “Family is important to us and that is the number one reason why we want to have children," Thoba said. "We also want our children to grow up in an environment where they are loved greatly by both parents who appreciate them."

More information on the lead up to the ceremony from Mambaonline:

On a continent where homosexuality is often seen as foreign and unnatural Tshepo Cameron Modisane and Thoba Calvin Sithole are loudly proclaiming their love for each other. Meet this proudly gay and engaged-to-marry couple who're determined to live and love freely.

The now 27-year-old men first met and became friends while studying in Durban but lost touch after Tshepo returned to Joburg. Thoba, who is originally from KZN, later moved to Gauteng in 2011.

They then bumped into each other at the Sunninghill Virgin Active gym, reigniting their friendship and becoming gym partners; supporting and motivating each other in their workouts. "We were helping each other with weights, training exercises and eating health plans," explains Tshepo.

The chemistry between them grew and they soon realised that they were becoming much more than friends. "We finally made it official and were an item,” says Tshepo.

“The great step that we took in our relationship as a gay couple was introducing each other to our families. We are so blessed to have supportive families who care about us. Even though we are gay they still love us."

The relationship strengthened and, one Friday evening at home in June last year, Tshepo proposed to Thoba. He accepted and the couple decided to do things the African way; respecting the traditions and customs associated with marriage.

"We communicated our intentions to get married to both our families as we wanted to have a traditional African ceremony and also have a traditional Western 'fairytale white wedding,’” explains Thoba.

With their families’ support, the couple have set the date of 6 April to have the African ceremony in Thoba’s hometown of Stanger. They expect over 200 guests and the guys will dress in their respective traditional clothing (Tshepo is Tswana and Thoba is Zulu).

Here's a video clip:

As Their Power Declines in America, Christofascists Are Moving to Developing Countries

Perhaps realizing that the cancer of religious based ignorance and bigotry is dying in America - the rapid upsurge in support for gay marriage is but one example - the Christofascists are busy exporting their hate and venom to the developing world where uneducated populations provide a more receptive audience to their anti-science and fear and based form of Christianity.  Hence the Catholic Church's rapid growth in Africa even as it is losing power and respect in the developed world.  Would that the Christofascists would emigrate themselves.  A lengthy article in AlterNet looks at the phenomenon (read the full piece).  Here are some highlights:

Sometime last year, the US quietly passed a milestone demographers had long been predicting: for the first time in its history, this country is no longer majority Protestant. Fewer than 50 percent of Americans now identify as Protestant Christians of any denomination. 

 This change has come on surprisingly recently, and from a historical perspective, with breathtaking speed.  As recently as 1993, almost two-thirds of Americans identified as Protestants, a number that had remained stable for the several preceding decades. But sometime in the 1990s, the ground started to shift, and it's been sliding ever since.   .   .   .   The rise of so-called megachurches, like Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California or Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill in Seattle, represents not growth, but consolidation. 

What's happening to these vanishing Protestants? For the most part, they're not converting to any other religion, but rather are walking away from religion entirely. They're becoming " nones," as the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life puts it. It seems likely that this is the same secularizing trend being observed in Europe, as people of advanced, peaceful democracies find religion increasingly irrelevant to their daily lives. 

The spokespeople of the religious right have noticed this trend as well, but it's clear they have very little idea what to do about it. In a column from 2005, Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, declared that "theological liberalism" is at fault for Christianity's decline, and that the only thing they need to do to reverse it is to make "a bold commitment to biblical authority." Far from it, the evidence is clear that churches clinging to antiquated dogma are part of the problem, as young people turn away from their strident decrees about gays and women. 

As their power declines in America and Europe, they're[fundamentalists]  increasingly moving abroad, to developing countries not as far along the secularization curve, where they often find a more receptive audience. 

The first example is Uganda, where the most despicable kind of American culture warriors have run amok with horrifying results. Since 2009, the country's parliament has been debating an "Anti-Homosexuality Bill," which among other things would establish a crime of "aggravated homosexuality," punishable by life imprisonment or death.

It's not just LGBT people in Uganda who've been harmed by the spread of aggressive evangelicalism. American megachurch pastor Rick Warren has a Ugandan protege, a pastor named Martin Ssempa, who has preached aggressively against contraception (in one bizarre public stunt, he burned condoms in the name of Jesus). 

American evangelicals have spread their poisonous influence to other African countries as well. A report by Political Research Associates, " Globalizing the Culture Wars," chronicles in detail how American religious-right groups, especially the theologically conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy, have worked together with their counterparts in Africa to foment homophobia and oppose feminism and gender equality. Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya, three major English-speaking African nations, have seen the brunt of this effort.

In part, religious conservatives are doing this as a power play against religious liberals in their own countries  .  .  .  .   the conservatives want to enlist the African branch of those churches to help them oppose and undercut liberal efforts for social justice. (Conservative Anglicans in America want African Anglicans to help them defeat liberal Anglican proposals to let gay people serve as clergy.) But it's the African people who bear the collateral damage of this cultural proxy war. 

The point of all this is that stopping the religious right is a global issue. The harm they do in America isn't trivial, but they do far greater harm in developing countries where constitutional protections aren't as strong, and where American money exerts an outsized influence. If we can't stop them here, there are people all over the world who will suffer much worse repercussions. 

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The Christianists continue to be a dangerous and poisonous force and - along with Islamic fundamentalists - represent true evil in the world.  They and other fundamentalists of other faiths need to be stopped and driven from power once and for all. It is far past time that they cease being viewed as either nice or pious people.