U.S. must fight proposed Ugandan anti-LGBT law

Originally published December 3, 2009.

AIDS Awareness Month began with World AIDS Day on Tuesday. The color red was everywhere, and discussion ensued on promises and goals for the year to come.

But in the HIV/AIDS conversation, no topic has been hotter in the last few weeks than Uganda. A country hit hard by HIV/AIDS, Uganda has benefited from U.S. funding in its struggle against the disease since President Bush set up the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2003. Ugandan Christian ministries have also increasingly received financial contributions from conservative American anti-LGBT figures like Pastor Rick Warren.

The relationships of people like Warren, Scott Lively, and Don Schmierer with Ugandan churches aren’t the only cause of extreme homophobia in the country. But their influence, coupled with continued U.S. financial support to combat HIV/AIDS, has enabled and encouraged Ugandan leaders to target LGBT individuals as scapegoats.

Ugandan law already criminalizes same-sex sexual activity. But as far back as mid-October, Ugandan legislators have been considering a law that would make “repeat offenses” and sexual interaction with HIV-positive individuals punishable by death.

Somehow, it’s taken until the end of November for most people in the U.S. to even begin talking about this despicable legislation. More importantly, the person who should be talking about it—Rick Warren, someone with undeniable financial and ideological involvement in the development of the law—refuses to “take sides” in any discussion of the issue. Even Lively, author of The Pink Swastika (which likens being gay or lesbian to Nazism) has suggested that this new law is a bit extreme.

In addition to being a flagrant violation of human rights and essentially legalizing genocide, Uganda’s proposed law reinforces attitudes that impede the ability to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. It mistakenly singles out the LGBT community as a huge cause of HIV/AIDS. It also prevents any LGBT individuals from seeking information about safe sex in a same-sex context and from seeking treatment if HIV-positive.

In addition, the law would attempt to force others to inform on people they believe to be gay or lesbian within 24 hours of suspected same-sex sexual interaction. If they don’t, they could face up to three years in jail. If this doesn’t sound like a witch hunt, I don’t know what does.

In this particular circumstance, though, something can still be done.

First, Rick Warren needs to come clean. At the moment, his money speaks for him.

His current choice to keep mum about the subject demonstrates quite clearly that he supports legalized genocide in Uganda because he can’t openly fund its promotion in the United States. If this isn’t the case, then he needs to stand up and say it. Otherwise, he might as well be as ragingly bigoted as Fred Phelps instead of hiding behind his false “respectful evangelical” demeanor.

Second, the United States needs to step up to the plate and engage with the Ugandan government about this appalling proposal. We cannot continue to fund efforts to treat and stop HIV/AIDS in a country which dumps undue blame on a group of people and hopes to wipe them out. It must be communicated that we will not fund fatal prejudice.

Anyone’s individual feelings about the LGBT community aside, it is imperative to protect their rights as human beings. While we argue about LGBT individuals’ rights as American citizens to marry, to live free from discrimination, and whether it’s okay for Adam Lambert to kiss another man on television, the developing situation in Uganda is a question of life or death.

In making commitments for the coming year to do more in the fight against HIV/AIDS, I cannot imagine anything greater than dedication to the protection of the lives of those being unduly persecuted for the existence of a disease that does not discriminate in its choice of victims. We need to take responsibility for a problem aggravated to this point by our own countrymen.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Shepard’s death still haunts U.S.

Originally published October 9, 2008.

For those of you who didn’t know, October is LGBT History Month. October also boasts the Human Rights Campaign’s National Coming Out Day on the 11th and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s Ally Week next week. The 12th, however, is left open – and for good reason.

October 12th, 2008 marks the 10-year anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was killed because of his sexual orientation. Shepard was brutally beaten and left to die tied to fence in the middle of nowhere on October 6-7, 1998. He spent roughly 18 hours like this, falling into a coma before he was discovered. He never regained consciousness.

I bring this up because 10 years later, Wyoming’s hate crime law still doesn’t include any identity-based terminology to protect its residents…and neither does Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, or South Carolina. Fourteen other states have hate crime laws in place that don’t include crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Only 11 states include both terms in their laws.

Of 7,720 reported single-bias hate crime incidents (keyword: “reported”) listed in the 2006 FBI hate crime statistics, 15.5% stemmed from a bias against sexual orientation. Of the 1,415 offenses that resulted from these incidents, approximately 98% were motivated by bias against people perceived as gays, lesbians, and bisexuals.

There’s the rub: we’re talking FBI stats, federal information. All this is brought to you by the 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act that Congress passed, mandating that the Attorney General collect information about crimes that display proof of prejudice based on various social identities, including sexual orientation.

But when the Matthew Shepard Act came up in Congress last year proposing that the federal government do more than just compile data, President Bush threatened to veto it. The act, though it stood alone in the House, was attached to a Department of Defense Authorization bill in the Senate. The right railed against its potential impediment of free speech (answer: none), and the antiwar left opposed provisions in the defense bill to which it was connected. Support for what had been a bipartisan bill crumbled under a looming veto.

The act’s formal title, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, reflects the fact that this legislation was not only about the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity. The federal hate crimes statute that exists also excludes disability and gender. LLEHCPA proposed to add these, in addition to the other two. It also authorized the Department of Justice to help state and local governments with the investigation and prosecution of violent hate crimes, and to assume jurisdiction in dealing with such cases in special circumstances. Finally, it extended the application of the hate crime statute beyond federally protected activities (such as school and voting).

The silencing of this act reflects another statistic: 30 states still don’t have laws protecting people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. That means in places like Missouri, it’s legal for someone to be fired from her job or evicted from her home for being a lesbian-and yes, it happens. That being said, I’m not comfortable leaving the pursuit of justice in response to hate crimes to state governments who can’t observe the right of human beings to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness free of the stifling oppression of prejudice.

No, that doesn’t mean LLEHCPA ensured the intervention of the federal government in the law proceedings of states.

It meant that if states were unwilling or unable to pursue a case, or if the government felt that insufficient measures were being taken to eradicate hate crimes, the Department of Justice could step in. Does that erase hate-motivated violence and discrimination? No, but it was, and still is, an absolutely necessary start.

The most recent suppression of this legislation happened last December, but let’s not kid ourselves. Incarnations of this act have been tossed around since 1999. Apparently people are too blinded by the controversy over same-sex marriages to even consider taking steps toward a common, consistent response against hate-motivated violence.

When Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney were brought to court for the murder of Matthew Shepard, they couldn’t be prosecuted for a hate crime because of both U.S. and Wyoming legislation. It speaks volumes about American integrity that in 10 years, nothing has changed.

Chelsea is a senior in English and music and has subsisted almost solely on Indian food this week.