Ugandan president calls on Africa to ‘save the world from homosexuality’

Uganda’s president has called on Africa to ‘save the world from homosexuality’ just days after a controversial bill to imprison all gays was passed by the Ugandan parliament.

It suggests that President Yoweri Museveni will sign the shocking bill into Ugandan law, which would impose the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’.

Ugandans will be banned by law from ‘promoting and encouraging’ homosexuality and from conspiring to enter into same-sex relationships, which human rights groups have denounced as ‘appalling’.

Museveni said on Sunday that homosexuality is “a great threat and danger to the reproduction of the human race.”

“Africa must take the lead in saving the world from this degeneration and decadence, which is really very dangerous for humanity,” the president said.

The Ugandan parliament passed legislation on March 21 that would ensure that all gays end up in prison

“If people of the opposite sex stop appreciating each other, how will the human race be propagated?”

The controversial comments followed a two-day inter-parliamentary conference at the State House in Entebbe, attended by MPs and delegates from 22 African countries.

There were some unnamed British MPs attending the conference – promoted by the Ugandan Parliament, the African Bar Association and the Nigeria-based Foundation for African Cultural Heritage – on ‘family values ​​and sovereignty’.

Some attended the conference online, hosted by Family Group International – an American evangelical Christian group that the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors far-right groups, has identified as an anti-LGBT organization.

The law against homosexuality was passed late on March 21 in a packed parliamentary chamber in the capital Kampala.

A roll call was ordered by the speaker of the House, who had repeatedly warned of the need to identify those who might oppose the legislation. It was supported by nearly all of the 389 lawmakers present.

Speaker Anita Among said: ‘Congratulations. Whatever we do, we do it for the people of Uganda.’

Bubulo Constituency MP John Musira dressed in an anti-gay dress during the debate on the controversial bill

Amnesty International then urged Museveni to veto the “appalling” anti-gay law, warning it was a “serious attack” on LGBTQ people.

However, based on the president’s recent comments, this seems unlikely.

Museveni even praised Uganda’s MPs for passing the anti-gay law, stating that promoting homosexuality ‘will never be tolerated’.

A Ugandan gay rights activist who attended the Entebbe conference via Zoom accused Uganda of “establishing an African strategy to combat homosexuality,” the Guardian reports.

The bill was introduced last month by an opposition lawmaker who said its aim was to penalize “promotion, recruitment and funding” associated with LGBTQ activities.

Activists from Uganda’s High Commission in South Africa hold banners to protest anti-homosexuality law

It creates the offense of ‘aggravated homosexuality’, which applies to sexual relations with HIV-infected persons as well as minors and other categories of vulnerable persons.

The bill also creates the crime of “attempted homosexuality,” which carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

An earlier version of the bll issued in 2014 was later overturned by a court on procedural grounds. The East African country is notorious for its intolerance of homosexuality, which was a criminal offense under colonial-era laws.

Same-sex activity is already punishable by life imprisonment under a colonial-era law targeting “carnal knowledge against the order of nature,” which was part of the basis of a report by dissenters in the parliamentary committee that passed the bill vetted before the vote.