SGL Café

Kato Killer Arraigned, and why the Police Chief apologized to reporters.

Ugandan activist David Kato's killer had negotiated money to be "used as a sexual partner" (according to the police chief), but it didn't go down and he killed Kato with a hammer. The authorities are adamant that the climate of terror in Uganda toward gays had nothing to do with it. Even if this is true, Uganda's seething hate for homosexuals effects everything -- even this reporting. Watch how the police chief first stumbled over then apologized after reading the phrase "used as a sexual partner". Were Ugandan reporters expected to pull their hair out and run screaming from the room at the suggestion of gay sex? Were their eyes supposed to bleed? This from the man in charge of investigating gay deaths in Uganda. Yes, the climate in Uganda effects everything. For those you you who don't already know of America's complicity in Uganda's mess, Rachel Maddow links the murder of David Kato to American religious right hatemongers Scott Lively & a Richard Cohen staffer who went to Uganda under the guise as experts to spread the message that homosexuals were out to recruit children and spread disease.

Funeral of murdered Ugandan activist David Cato marred by homophobic Pastor

UPDATE: HRC sent a nationwide action alert to its 1.3 million members and supporters, asking them to sign a petition to the three leading anti-LGBT fundamentalist pastors to stop exporting hate in the name of religion. Planning is underway for nationwide vigils honoring the life of David Kato. Angry scenes marred the funeral of murdered Ugandan gay activist David Kato today when the presiding pastor called on homosexuals to repent or "be punished by God". Towards the end of an emotional ceremony to mourn Kato, who was bludgeoned to death on Wednesday, Anglican pastor Thomas Musoke launched into a homophobic tirade, shocking the dozens of gay men and women as well as foreign diplomats in attendance. "The world has gone crazy," Musoke said. "People are turning away from the scriptures. They should turn back, they should abandon what they are doing. You cannot start admiring a fellow man." The funeral was held near Kato's ancestral home of Namataba, outside Kampala, and was attended by about 300 people, including family, friends, and members of the local community. A busload of gay activists arrived from the capital wearing T-shirts featuring Kato's face, or rainbows or the slogan "The struggle continues". [Guardian] This is the epitome of ignorance. Westboro Baptist Church would be so proud. Fortunately friends of Cato shouted down the Pastor and wrestled the microphone away. Pastor Musoke was escorted away by the cops. What kind of religious person, a man of God, would disrespect a funeral in this way? American evangelicals exporting their murderous brand of Christianity to Africa are totally to blame for inciting this sort of homo-hysteria. With all of Africa's ills, one would think these 'good Christians' would have more pressing concerns than gay people. Jesus would weep. Don't be surprised if some of the locals further disrespect Cato by digging up his body. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened in Africa when the deceased is gay. And as those t-shirts worn by Cato supporters said, "The Struggle Continues", in Africa and here in America. ~~

Uganda's "Hang Them" Murder: Just history repeating?

UPDATE: HRC sent a nationwide action alert to its 1.3 million members and supporters, asking them to sign a petition to the three leading anti-LGBT fundamentalist pastors to stop exporting hate in the name of religion. Planning is underway for nationwide vigils honoring the life of David Kato. Three weeks after winning a lawsuit against a Ugandan rag for their infamous "Hang Them" piece which listed promonent homosexual names and addresses, gay activist David Kato was bludgeoned in his home with a hammer. *See Cato interview below* For its 2 October issue, [Rolling Stone - no relation to the American mag] pictured Kato and another man on the front page under the words "Hang them", and the sub-headlines "We Shall Recruit 100,000 Innocent Kids by 2012: Homos" and "Parents now face heart-breaks [sic] as homos raid schools". A few weeks later Rolling Stone carried another frontpage story with the headline "More homos' faces exposed", with the identities of 17 people inside. [Guardian]
It's an old theme. THEY are coming for your CHILDREN. Sarah Palin's recent use of the phrase "blood libel" sparked outrage because its an infamous slur that Jews kill Christian babies to make Matzo. The Nazi's used such propaganda to suggest that Jews (and homosexuals) were a threat to good German children. Though admittedly most people had to check Wikipedia to find out if they should be angry or not, it was more her tone which was offensive in light of the Tucson tragedy. Nevertheless, it points to the long history of using children to instill fear and hate.
Illustration (right) from the antisemitic children's book, The Poisonous Mushroom, in which a Jewish man is depicted as a child molester attempting to lure German children with candy. [The Breman Museum]
Author Nathan James first noted the parallels for GBM News: Seventy-three years ago, Germans awoke one morning to read in the Volkischer Beobachter, a virulently anti-Semitic, anti-gay newspaper, that their Jewish and gay neighbors had been publicly identified and targeted for death. The paper’s editors decried Jews and gays as “threats to Germany’s children”, and to their society as a whole ... The use of the press to single out these “hated” groups facilitated the orgy of violence that followed. ... as in 1938 Germany, the damage had already been done: there comes news this morning that a gay man named in the Rolling Stone hit piece, David Kato, had been bludgeoned to death in his Mukono home—in broad daylight.
Most comparisons to Nazis in today's rhetoric are just wrong and offensive. But as a list of 400 Rabbis have signed a letter condemning Glenn Beck for Nazi-baiting and claiming George Soros helped send his fellow Jews to the camps, here is a REAL and undeniable parallel. Inciting hate. Using children. This method is even older than the Nazis, yet the religious right continues to employ these tactics. David Bahati, 'Pastor' Martin Ssempa and their American Evangelical puppetmasters like Scott Lively & Rick Warren have David Cato's blood on their hands. We must keep reminding them of that fact. ~~~~ Statements on the Cato murder. President Barack Obama -- "LGBT rights are not special rights; they are human rights..." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- "...We honor David’s legacy by continuing the important work to which he devoted his life."

Rachel Maddow skewers David Bahati over Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill

Rachel Maddow is such a blessing ... This is must-see TV. For two days on the Rachel Maddow show, Maddow interviewed David Bahati, the author the now infamous "Kill the Gays" bill in Uganda. The bill may pass soon. But more importantly, she points to Bahati's puppet masters here in America - evangelicals in the halls of power who are using Uganda (and Bahati's ig'nunt ass) as a petri dish, watching how their exported homo-hate germ grows, because they want to bring that madness home. We've said it all along - we cannot sit back and do nothing as Africa's gays are martyred by American hate. Because they will surely come for us next. She begins respectfully restrained, but nails him at the end. Bless her monumental restraint. Some regular folk we know would have removed the mic and ... well, figure it out. But watch her work ... part 1 ... part 2 ...

Kenya (and America) needs a re-education on what GAY is. Desperately.

Kenyan Prime minister Raila Odinga's statement on Monday that gay couples should be arrested has brought back to the limelight the sensitive issue of homosexuality. Although experts say that the number of gay couples in the country is rising, the topic is almost never discussed. But a debate has suddenly been triggered by the latest remarks to come from politicians on the contentious question of homosexuality. One thing is clear from watching this video: Gay = effeminate in some minds, but not just in Africa. Here is America a shocking amount of people will say "He doesn't look gay" which says that they have a defined view of what gay is supposed to be. A linebacker or the pro basketball player who's all over the news doesn't fit into their narrow view of what gay is. The studly rapper turned actor who is a perpetual bachelor with all the women throwing themselves at him couldn't possibly be gay. He just hasn't found the right woman, right? John Amaechi - ex-NBA baller and author of Man In The Middle - said it best in this Think Progress video interview: when it comes to perceptions about gayness: "If I took my understanding of what it was to be gay from popular culture in America—and in Britain basically—then I just wouldn’t fit because there are no gay people that look like this. I would have to change everything. I would have to change the drink that I choose to drink. I’d have to change the clothes that I wear. Everything. I think if we really want to advance our cause in terms of taking our place as a valued part of the spectrum of diversity then we need to look within the LGBT community and say within us there is this similar spectrum. There are parts of us that are very, very different and that can be found across the country and across the world and we need to embrace each bit of that and that includes ending things like people writing straight acting on their profiles as if to be camp is awful. We need to accept that some people are camp and some people are butch. Some people are pretty and some people are average, but we all fit." In Africa, they think gays are the sickly sissies among them to be rooted out and even murdered. At least in public, privately they must know better because if history tells us anything about the squeakiest wheels on social issues, they always ALWAYS get the most LUBE. Inspired by America's own evangelical terrorists, this murderous obsession afflicts those who've had a raw nerve touched by the subject. This idiot and Pastor Martin "poo-poo" Ssempa in Uganda (and many in America's 'pro-family' groups) have their own dirty little secrets, no doubt. They are either after notoriety and money off the backs of gays by fueling ignorance and their genocide, or they are self-loathing gays themselves desperately trying to shield themselves by shining the light elsewhere (on the effeminate), making it a toss-up which behavior is most repugnant.

Gender Theory certainly should play a larger part in today's gay rights discussions. In Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer, nationally known gender activist Riki Wilchins combines "straightforward prose with concrete examples from LGBT and feminist politics, as well as her own life, to guide the reader through the ideas that have forever altered our understanding of bodies, sex and desire." Activists and wannabe activists should educate (and therefore arm) themselves on the subject. But more basically, the meat and potatoes of this is every one of us living authentic out and proud lives - the actors, athletes, soldiers, garbage men, etc - is the only way we will change perceptions of what GAY IS here in America and ultimately abroad. We have American good will ambassadors like George Clooney going to places like the Sudan using his fame in an effort to avert genocide. When are LGBT ambassadors going to reach out to Uganda, Kenya (and lawd knows, Jamaica) in a effort to keep the global spotlight on the matter and possibly thwart the obvious looming, American evangelical inspired LGBT genocides there? Like it or not, those African fires were started here in America. We cannot in good conscience sit idly and watch them burn. ~ UPDATE: Kenyan PM backtracks on anti-gay comments He says that he was "misquoted" and he understands that "gays have rights." Uh-huh. **ON Ignorance ALERT** He also thinks that since the country is evenly split between men and women, there is no need for homosexuality. ** OFF ALERT** No need for it? What there is clearly a need for in Kenya (and America) is a complete re-education on what GAY IS or what QUEER IS and what happens to societies who do not embrace their inherent differences. Until that happens, progress will continue to be painful and embarrassingly slow. And of course, men, women and children will continue to die. ~