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

The president of Uganda has called on Africa to ‘save the world from homosexuality’ just days after a controversial bill to jail all gay people was passed through the Ugandan parliament.

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

Ugandans will be banned from ‘promoting and abetting’ homosexuality as well as from conspiring to engage in same-sex relationships under the law, which human rights groups have condemned as ‘appalling’.

Speaking on Sunday, Museveni said that homosexuality was ‘a big threat and danger to the procreation of human race’.

‘Africa should provide the lead to save the world from this degeneration and decadence, which is really very dangerous for humanity,’ the president said.

Uganda president Yoweri Museveni has called on Africa to ‘save the world from homosexuality’

The Ugandan parliament passed laws that would see all gay people jailed on March 21

‘If people of opposite sex stop appreciating one another then how will the human race be propagated?’ 

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

There were some unnamed British MPs who attended the conference – promoted by the Ugandan parliament, the African Bar Association and the Nigerian-based Foundation for African Cultural Heritage – on ‘family values and sovereignty’.

Some attended the conference online which was hosted by Family Group International – a US evangelical Christian group defined as an anti-LGBT organisation by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors far-Right groups.  

The anti-homosexuality bill was passed late on March 21 inside a packed parliamentary chamber in the capital Kampala. 

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

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

MP from the Bubulo constituency John Musira dressed in an anti gay gown during the debate of the controversial bill

Amnesty International subsequently urged Museveni to veto the ‘appalling’ anti-gay bill, warning it was ‘a grave assault’ on LGBTQ people. 

However, based on the president’s recent comments, it appears this is unlikely.

In fact, Museveni praised Ugandan MPs for passing the anti-gay bill, declaring that the promotion of homosexuality will ‘never be tolerated’.

A Ugandan gay rights activist who attended the Entebbe conference via Zoom accused Uganda of ‘drawing up an African strategy to to fight homosexuality’, the Guardian reports.

The bill was introduced last month by an opposition lawmaker who said his goal was to punish ‘promotion, recruitment and funding’ related to LGBTQ activities.

Activists at the Ugandan High Commission in South Africa hold placards in protest at the anti-homosexuality bill

It creates the offence of ‘aggravated homosexuality’, which applies in cases of sex relations involving those infected with HIV as well as minors and other categories of vulnerable people.

The bill also creates the offence of ‘attempted homosexuality’, punishable with up to ten years in jail.

An earlier version of the bll enacted in 2014 was later nullified by a court on procedural grounds. The east African country is notorious for its intolerance of homosexuality – which was criminalised under colonial-era laws. 

Same-sex activity is already punishable with life imprisonment under a colonial-era law targeting ‘carnal knowledge against the order of nature’, which formed part of the basis of a report by dissenters on the parliamentary committee that vetted the bill before the vote.