Ugandan LGBT advocates, working together under a group called Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, have filed a petition, challenging the validity of the draconian new anti-LGBT law that was signed into law hastily earlier this year.
Nicholas Opiyo, a Ugandan lawyer who helped to draft the petition, said the new anti-gay law violates the country's constitution because it encourages the discrimination of people based on sexual orientation. He said it will be several months, even years, before judges reach a decision in the case.
Uganda's president enacted the law last month, strengthening criminal penalties against homosexuals despite Western criticism.
The law would provide life imprisonment for LGBT people, and stiff prison sentences for anyone who knows and supports and LGBT person, including parents, clergy, doctors, and other care professionals.
Additionally, Mother Jones did an extensive profile on the leading American anti-LGBT activists who cultivated the climate for such a law, Scott Lively. The piece documents Lively's history with Uganda, as well as his extremist views. Take a look at this excerpt:
During his first visit there in 2002, he spoke at an anti-pornography conference and warned participants that Western cultural Marxists, backed by liberals (such as George Soros), were trying to erode Uganda's independence by attacking family values—a message that played on lingering colonial-era resentments. One of their core tactics, Lively argued, was deploying homosexuals to infiltrate Ugandan society. "The cultural Marxists go into these countries, they buy media and they set up these street activist organizations to recruit," Lively tells me. "I said, 'Okay, this is what's going on here. The way to respond to that is to focus on affirming family values—and discouraging the alternatives.'" Lively, who was used to being heckled, was stunned by the positive reception he received at the gathering.
Later the same year, an influential Ugandan Assemblies of God pastor named Stephen Langa invited Lively and his wife, Anne, back to Kampala for a barnstorming tour. Lively met with lawmakers, lectured at universities, and gave a number of media interviews. He and Langa also hosted an all-day conference with local pastors. The event was closed to the media and the public, but Lively later recalled that the pastors who attended were "very grateful" for his insights "about the way in which America was brought low by homosexual activism."
Read the full profile at Mother Jones.
You can see more of what Scott Lively has said by visiting GLAAD's profile on Scott Lively as a part of the Commentator Accountability Project. GLAAD will continue to raise up the advocacy of LGBT Ugandans in mainstream media, and hold anti-LGBT activists like Scott Lively accountable for the words they use.