Trollheart

Come on, seriously: how can any country in the twenty-first century pass a law that criminalises homosexuality? And not only that, but one of the most piss-poor countries in Africa! Even Ireland are sending them aid. And now our government are "considering their position"? Jesus! If it was up to me I'd cut off all funding immediately. How can you support such a regime?

And of course, as usual, it's fundamentalist (mental is right!) religious groups pushing the agenda, mostly Christian surprise surprise! I'd love to know where in the Bible it says "thou shalt not be gay". Just because it's said "marriage is between man and woman" does not automatically mean it can't be love between man and man, just that it wasn't specifically mentioned. Didn't Jesus, after all, tell us to love our brother? That all men should love each other? Talk about twisting his words.

I know Iran have a similar policy, and I abhor it, but they are at least self-sufficient with their oil reserves and supported by the Arab states around them. The President or Prime Minister or whatever the **** he is of Uganda says "We see homosexuality as a kind of sickness of the mind." No pal: discriminating against others, threatening them with jail, signing it into law, and putting their lives at risk because you don't agree with their sexual orientation --- THAT'S a sickness of the mind!

This law makes me sick, and Uganda --- it's not just their president and government: apparently this law is supported by the "vast majority" of Ugandans --- makes me ashamed to be a human. A regime like this, a country like this should in my opinion be totally ostracised for passing such a hateful and evil law.

Thoughts?

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LoathsomePete

When I was taking a couple of anthropology courses in college my professor tried really hard to instill the idea of staying away from ethnocentric viewpoints. I honestly don't know if this applies in this case, I don't know enough about Uganda's culture to say one way or the other, but this has definitely been exacerbated by western religious influence, so I guess it kind of makes it fair game. It could certainly be raised as a point to cut off funding from other nations, but it does bug me that people who rely on it won't be able to get it because of something they have no control over. At the end of the day I think f Stone Cold Steve Austin can say this:

Then I think most arguments against are just grasping for straws.

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Isbjørn

How about this: everyone gets along and shares a giant pizza. Discrimination is never okay, and people who discriminate aren't leader material and should either grow up our stop being a leader.

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14232949

Pete, my man.
You've covered everything I was going to add to this conversation and more. Top post.

Okay, first off as you've said, Uganda is a completely different culture to us. In their society, in their way of life, they view homosexuality is evil.
A demonic act which should be punishable by death.
There is nothing we can do about the way they feel.
We're asking them to accept gays, to not hate on their way of life by not accepting Ugandans and their beliefs.

What is wrong both morally and consciously to us, is not to them. We live in a society that has finally began to accept minority groups including homosexuals.
Hey, it wasn't so long that ago that the Western World would have acted exactly the same way to homosexuals.

I don't think it's a coincidence that in our evolution to becoming a more tolerant, accepting society we have also become less religious.
The Bible preaches hate as well as love. Look at the Old Testament as God rained his fury down on everyone he cast as sinners.
As we've moved away from fearing religion and become more capable of our own thought, feelings and opinions we can say that condemning homosexuality is wrong.

Uganda haven't experienced the same path of enlightenment we have and are still a very religious country who also heavily practice witchcraft. Those are their beliefs and we must respect that.
Sure, we could slam them as evil. But they're not. They're carrying out what they perceive to be right.
By the same token, they could look at us campaigning for gay marriage as an act of evil. An act of defiance against natural selection and God.

Obviously, I support gay marriage, as I assume everyone on the board does.
Stone Cold Steve Austin said it and all. If two people want to get married, let them get married. Even if you're against homosexuality for whatever reason, surely something that does not affect your life in any way can not harm you, so why oppose it?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that don't be shocked or outraged by what Ugandans are doing. Let them develop, them them learn, it would be a crying shame if we 'westernized' the entire world so that everyone shared the same values and beliefs.
This is what they believe and no matter of internet outrage will change that.

We can only blame ourselves for introducing them to Christianity in the first place.
Give a toddler a gun, and act shocked when it starts shooting people?
Uganda is a developing country, we brought evil in the form of Christianity into their country in an attempt to try and teach them moral values. We handed them a book that preaches hate, and now they're hating.

On a more comical side

Paul Smeenus

Now juxtapose those laws against these results

Global Internet Porn Habits Infographic | PornMd Sex Search

I have no data on the accuracy of the above results, but it's kinda what I'd expect. The more restrictive and severe the homosexuality laws, the higher the gay porn hits.

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Tristesse

That website is quite disturbing. Especially Romania, where most of the top ten are related to "mom" or "mom and son".

Ew ew ew!

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Paul Smeenus

I noticed that, and it's not what I saw there the first time I looked, it looks like they filtered the gay results, because that what I was predominantly seeing from the countries in red above

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Circe

There's not really any good outcome in this scenario. Simply cutting off foreign aid to Uganda is going to cut off important help for a country devastated by war and poverty. While I don't particularly enjoy the idea of handing aid to a corrupt and cruel regime I'd rather send it to them than leave the country to slowly collapse from the inside, particularly as said aid gives the west significant influence over the Ugandan government that has already pushed them into downgrading the punishment from death to imprisonment. As for somehow magically changing the Ugandan people's attitude, I doubt it's possible. You're talking about a society that crosses a lack of education, a staunchly patriarchal and conservative outlook, a rotting influence from a couple of statements in a holy book that may actually have been a translation error in the first place, the legacy of a colonialist power that treated the lives of Ugandans with total contempt and an authoritarian government looking for scapegoats and propaganda targets to hide their ineptitude and score some brownie points with the disturbing 'traditional values' bloc that seems to be emerging in the world.

Stonedtone

The progressive South America. hmmm

Black Francis

I don't get it

This law isn't gonna stop homosexuality from occurring,
i relate it to a dad having a homosexual son telling him "If you are gay you have to leave the house"

that won't stop him from being gay is it? they just don't want gays around, but why? are they gonna paint every building pink or something? destroy their economy? No, it just makes them uncomfortable and just because of that they want them outta there

i think as we move on to the future we're gonna have to revaluate all the lessons we've been taught and take only the good and leave the ignorance behind.

tackle sexism until women weren't treated as 2nd class citizens
tackle racism making prejudice against a race legally unacceptable.
tackle homosexuality, and implant yet again the seed of liberal thoughts to countries who have lived their whole lives with a different set of beliefs.

And yet i can't say who is right or wrong, you can't force ppl to think like you because that is exactly what they are doing.

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