San Francisco – Greg Owen writes in LGBTQ Nation that a remarkable collection of well-known U.S. conservatives are openly supporting Uganda’s latest “Kill the Gays” law, claiming LGBTQ+ rights in Africa are just another form of “neo-colonialism.” Media Matters reports the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh mocked those condemning the draconian legislation passed by Uganda’s Assembly in March as “cultural colonialists” whining over “protecting so-called LGBTQ rights” and claimed opponents of the bill “don’t think that Uganda has any particular right to govern itself and have its own culture and its own way of life.” (See also: Matt Walsh: Transphobe of the Year)
Walsh is just one “Kill the Gays” advocate among a toxic group working from the same set of talking points. Right-wing Heritage Foundation fellow Delano Squires found fault in media coverage which he said was trying to force Uganda and Kenya, which similarly criminalizes homosexuality, to “bend the knee to ‘Pride.’” “Perhaps Uganda doesn’t want its culture colonized by the West again,” he said. Another Daily Wire bomb-thrower, Michael Knowles, accused Americans who speak against the bill of exporting “the LGBTQ flag and condoms and abortion and all the trappings of liberalism.” Knowles recently made headlines for saying, “Transgenderism must be eradicated.”
At far-right Breitbart, the conservative mouthpiece lauded Uganda for “resisting international pro-gay propaganda by putting forward new legislation to protect its ‘cherished values and culture.’’” quoting Parliament Speaker Annet Anita Among, a rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ legislator and sponsor of the bill.
According to the site, “The United States has played a central role in pushing a pro-gay agenda contrary to Ugandan values.” U.S. evangelicals have been pushing homophobia in Uganda and have had a role in the current Kill the Gays bill and in a terrifying turn of events, PinkNews reports that Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ+ president Yoweri Museveni has sent the Anti-Homosexuality Bill back to parliament on April 20 in an effort to render it even more draconian. The government’s chief whip, Denis Hamson Obua, said President Museveni had agreed to sign the bill but it needed amendments to “facilitate the reinforcement and the strengthening of some provisions in line with our best practices.”
Source: Greg Owen for LGBTQ Nation
Cover image: Activist Papa De, via her Instagram @aconstantbecoming