Actions: Please sign petition at:http://a.allout.org/s/O5dXq/ AND PLEASE DONATE TO AHRC SAFE SHELTER AND EMERGENCY FUND: DONATE HERE
March 24, 2023: This week Uganda’s Parliament passed the dangerous Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023. It is now on the desk of President Yoweri Museveni awaiting his assent which will then make it law. It is one of the worst anti-homosexuality laws in the world and serves to license what is already occurring: gay hunts, assault, threats, blackmail, unlawful detentions, torture and even killings. The laws provides jail terms to include 10 years to life and the death penalty for so called “aggravated homosexuality.” It also criminalizes children giving them 3 years in jail if they commit the “offense of homosexuality.” The Governments of the U.S.A. and Canada are speaking out and probably will take action against Uganda. Our Pride voices must be represented too, informing the President that we are not the deviants he has referred to us as on public media. The following letter is being sent today to President Museveni of Uganda. Additional signatures may be added via Petitions online or by sending an email to Melanie Nathan. At African Human Rights Coalition at commissionermnathan@gmail.com
THE LETTER:
His Excellency The President of Uganda President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni c/o secretary@op.go.ug March 23, 2023 Your Excellency President Museveni, Re: Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023, - "THE KILL THE GAYS BILL" currently pending assent We are writing this to you, with much PRIDE. PRIDES around the World represent millions of LGBTQI+ people, to include every continent and every country as well as African countries. LGBTQI+ people are good people. We are not abominations, nor Satanic. We are not abnormal people. All of these are descriptions by the Ugandan Parliamentarians attempting to justify the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, now before you for assent. This law, as it stands, includes lengthy jail terms and the death penalty, as well as the untenable criminalization of children, who are unable by law to consent to sexual relations or contracts, yet you are criminalizing as if they are so capable. Loving someone of the same gender is not a sex-act, nor a behavior, nor a lifestyle, and not a “vice.” It is a human relationship based on same-sex attraction, a sexuality. Homosexuality is not a Western export: Homophobia is the Western export, and your country has become the unfortunate cesspool of targeted misinformation, untruths, and flagrant lies. We are not pedophiles, while there may be some among us as is the case with the heterosexual population. In fact by sheer numbers, there are many more heterosexual pedophiles – and yet Uganda does not criminalize their heterosexual relationships. The appropriate criminal codes do! It makes no sense to criminalize and kill in the name of love. That is what you will be doing when you assent to the Ugandan Kill the Gays Bill. We are CEO’s of major corporations, we are lawyers, doctors, scientists, nurses, teachers, professors, theologians, librarians, musicians, artists, athletes, salespeople, engineers, architects, entrepreneurs, pilots, judges, politicians, members of parliaments, congressmembers, U.S. senators, prime ministers, cabinet members, and even a president. We go to the movies together, eat in restaurants together, enjoy concerts, sit at Xmas tables with our families. We go to church, synagogues, temples around the world where we are accepted. We raise children to be accomplished and productive members of society, and we grow old together. We are relationships, we are not sex-acts. We are not a lifestyle, and we defy culture. We are everyone. We are imploring upon you, Your Excellency, to look at us and to SEE Uganda’s LGBTQI+ community as no different to ALL of US. We are of right to love anyone of our choice, as long as we do not hurt anyone else. Defilement of a minor, pedophilia, rape, are all dealt with under criminal codes that do not ban our rights to relationships. Our consensual same-sex relationships do not hurt anyone else. Your Excellency, we invite you to reconsider the idea which you are spreading, with violent consequences, that we are deviants, by looking at this world and truly seeing us for who we are. When you see us, you will understand that to say same-gender love is un-African is tantamount to saying that Africans do not share a human way of being with the rest of the world. With respect, that is flatly and undeniably an impossible contention. All humans are the same in terms of our state of being. Sexuality is a state of being. It is not a culture. Please, Your Excellency, when you note that we are millions of people around the world, who are not abnormal, nor defective, you could lead your people to a better understanding. Please do not assent to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill for its most important reasons, to include that all Uganda’s people, like all people around the world are people created the same in the eyes of God. If there is sin, it is for God to judge and no one else. The greatest abhorrence and true crime against God will be committed by the stroke of your pen, Your Excellency, if you assent to imprison or to put Uganda’s people to death because of who they LOVE. Let our last word here be that of the world’s greatest leader, Madiba, former South African president Nelson Mandela, who when rising from his own abhorrent inequality, and while charged with enshrining full equality into the South African Constitution for LGBTQI+ people, noted: “Never, never, never again, will South Africa be the skunk of the world.” We are signing in unison, representing many of the PRIDES from around the world, to include UGANDA PRIDE. We hope that you will not assent to the Act and that the Parliamentarians will reconsider their votes. With kind regards, and Blessings for love and peace in Uganda SIGNED:
UGANDA PRIDE- Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS COALITION - Melanie Nathan SAN FRANCISCO PRIDE – Suzanne Ford
PRIDE OF AFRICA NPC – Kaye Ally
AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS AMBASSADORS – Ibrahim Mukiibi
JOHANNESBURG PRIDE – Nolene du Preez
SAN DIEGO PRIDE – Fernando Lopez
BOTSWANA PRIDE – Olivia Ntlame Maswikiti
CAPE TOWN PRIDE – Wentzel April
SOWETO PRIDE – Siphokazi Nombande SAN DIEGO PRIDE – Fernando Lopez HERITAGE OF PRIDE - NEW YORK CITY PRIDE - Sandra Perez
DC BLACK PRIDE
THE CENTER FOR BLACK EQUITY - Earl Fowlkes Jr.
LETS WALK UGANDA MR. GAY WORLD - George K. Rey GAY WORLD FOUNDATION - George K. Rey NCTC - New Conservatory Theatre Center San Francisco - Ed Decker
INISHOWEN PRIDE IRELAND BLACK PRIDE VEGAS Pride Vegas - Johanna Perez ARKANSAS BLACK GAY MEN'S FORUM - Antoine Ghoston
To Add your Name please contact: commissionermnathan@gmail.com
Please sign petitions at: http://a.allout.org/s/O5dXq/
AND PLEASE DONATE TO AHRC SAFE SHELTER AND EMERGENCY FUND: DONATE HERE
African Human Rights Coalition (AHRC) AHRC works in the U.S. and in several African countries with LGBTQI+ people in forced displacement. AHRC is the only U.S./global organization that is dedicated solely to LGBTQI+ people forcibly displaced in and from African countries. AHRC advocates for human rights, protections, and provides lifesaving humanitarian services, safe shelter, food, medical, transportation, and legal resources, while promoting decriminalization and decolonization of human sexuality and gender identity, and solutions to navigate the impact of anti-LGBTQI+ laws, hostile environments and the massive displacement crises facing Africa's LGBTQI+ community. We are led by those with lived experience, most fleeing anti-LGBTQI+ criminalizing laws and persecution.
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