U.S. Based Christian Group Seeking Death for Gays in Africa

On NPR's Fresh Air, there's a fascinating interview with Jeff Sharlet about "The Family," a quasi-secret ultraconservative organization in Washington D.C. that strives to advance an extreme right-wing agenda in the U.S. and around the world.   Terry Gross lays groundwork:  The fundamentalist group The Family has operated secretively with the help of influential congressmen and senators who are members of the group to promote their anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-free-market ideas in America and other parts of the world, but two sex scandals involving people connected with The Family - Nevada Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford - have brought public attention to the group.  There's other Family news.  Bart Stupak and Joe Pitts are connected to The Family.  They introduced the amendment to the House health care reform bill that would prevent funds appropriated from the act to cover abortion and go to any insurance company that covers abortion.  Pitts is a member of The Family; Stupak lives at their residence on C Street.  The Family is also connected to proposed anti-gay legislation in Uganda that could sentence, quote, repeat offenders to the death penalty.

The article should be read in its entirety, but here's a few quotes from Sharlet concerning the Family's efforts to amplify anti-gay policies inside Uganda:  "Well, the new legislation adds to this something called aggravated homosexuality...  The use of any drugs or any intoxicants in seeking gay sex - in other words, you go to a bar and you buy a guy a drink, you're subject to the death penalty if you go home and sleep together after that.  What it also does is it extends this outward, so that if you know a gay person and you don't report it, that could mean - you don't report your son or daughter, you can go to prison.  And it goes further, to say that any kind of promotion of these ideas of homosexuality, including by foreigners, can result in long prison terms. Talking about same sex-marriage positively can lead you to imprisonment for life.  And it's really kind of a perfect case study in the export of a lot of American, largely evangelical ideas about homosexuality exported to Uganda, which then takes them to their logical end...  The legislator that introduced the bill, a guy named David Bahati, is a member of The Family.  He appears to be a core member of The Family. He works, he organizes their Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast and oversees a African sort of student leadership program designed to create future leaders for Africa, into which The Family has poured millions of dollars working through a very convoluted chain of linkages..."

That this anti-gay legislation in Uganda is deeply tied to U.S. lawmakers operating out of C Street, in the shadow of our nation's capital, is cause for alarm.  Are these "Christian" elected officials using the African country as a testing ground, with an eye toward America's eventual slouch toward theocratic rule?  Is this an example of what lies in store for LGBT folks if fundies ever take over our government?  (And believe me, Dubya and Co. was nothing compared to the new Palin-ized Republican Party.)  As I and many others have said countless times before, the anti-gay agenda of religious conservatives involves more than just "protecting the institution of marriage."  They're out for blood.

Related Post:  Rick Warren's Pastor Pal in Uganda: Arrest All Homos

Comments

[Aggie, Fair Haven, Vermont]

You have to wonder if this isn't where the Balkanization of the U.S. will begin, with the country being carved up into "Jesustan", and what's left over (the part touching Canada?). It will make Margaret Atwood look like a prophet...

[Amanda]

Fundie preachers in America are already calling for the execution of gays... hiding behind the Bible and the 1st Amendment. Although, most I imagine will be satisfied with a return to the pre Lawrence V. Texas days. If we don't take these zealots seriously, we'll live to regret it. And it won't happen overnight. One by one, there will be anti-gay laws added to the books. It's already happening in the southern states.

[Carol]

Uganda, where sanity goes to die. For every atrocity we hear about over there, there are hundreds we don't. Why can't someone from the progressive community put a mole in the Family?