Uganda’s law to strengthen sanctions against homosexual behaviour continues to stir controversy around the world. There were some interesting comments in an article yesterday, entitled “Africa’s Anti-Gay Laws Spark Accusations and Denials in US.” The article referenced a book called “The Family,” by American journalist Jeff Sharlet in which the author “criticizes a group of influential American Christian leaders and conservative lawmakers with close ties to politicians in East Africa.”
Mr. Sharlet is quoted as asking: “It has become sort of a Frankenstein’s monster and is the family going to take responsibility for the empowerment they have given to some of these politicians?”
Are we to understand from this comment that the empowerment of Africans to lead their own people is something to be condemned if those leaders are not lining up behind the socialist agenda of the West’s left-wing fundamentalists? That mentality would certainly be consistent with the way American leftists beat down conservative black Americans.
The racist colonialist spirit still has deep roots among the West’s Darwinian humanist liberals.
Public date: December 22nd, 2009
December 22, 2009
Thanks for your attention to this subject. However, you have some facts wrong. I’m not a humanist or a liberal. I’m inclined to trust science on evolution, but it’s not an important issue to me; I don’t care much about creationism in schools.
I do care about killing people for having adult, consensual sex, which is what the law in question proposes. That’s what you mean by “strengthening sanctions” Why don’t you just say that? While we’re on the subject of political correctness, how do you feel about death penalty laws for homosexuals in some Islamic countries?
Meantime, get your facts on Uganda straight. The dictator there whose party is proposing the gay death penalty bill came to power as a socialist and became a dictator as a socialist. To me, dictators are dictators; I don’t care much whether they agree with one economic approach or another. But maybe you don’t mind so long as the man in question shares your economic perspective?
The criticism being leveled against Uganda not just “Darwinian humanist liberals” but, in the main, by conservative Christians all over the world — and within Uganda — is that this bill is not an example of “Africans leading their own people” but of heavy pressure over the years from foreign politicians and activists who’ve attached ideological strings to their aid money.
December 22, 2009
Jeff Sharlet,
Name some names, since you claim to know all this! What specific foreign politicians and activists?
Or is this just tabloid junk you produce, name names.
December 22, 2009
Getting facts straight:
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1. We made no comment here on the nature of the Ugandan gov’t or leader or politician who introduced the bill, so telling us that he’s a socialist doesn’t correct anything we said otherwise about him.
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2. This item referenced a very specific point, re. hypocrisy in domestic and foreign affairs in the way liberals handle accusations and slurs about colonialism and racism, it was not a comprehensive statement on the Ugandan controversy.
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3. Inclusion of capital punishment is not the only reform being proposed in the controversial bill from what we’ve read on the subject, so our general phraseology, “strengthening sanctions,” is not inappropriate.
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4. Words are important, and honest people don’t use the word “hitting” when referring to “spanking” of a child because the word hitting conjours up inaccurate and dishonest images that are inaccurate re. spanking. Likewise, regardless of your view on the Ugandan bill, it is fundamentally dishonest to use the term “killing” about the lawfully enacted penalty of capital punishment. People only do that because of the emotive value they get from the word “killing,” but it is grossly irresponsible and intellectually dishonest.
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5. The point we were making was not who was objecting to this Ugandan law or who was doing so most. We were addressing one particular argument and mentality, that of hypocrisy surrounding the rhetoric of race and multiculturalism.
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6. Are you guilty of fraud and slander and dishonesty with your outlandish claim that Western interests have attached conservative policy strings to their aid or can you back up your claim with specifics? What a joke. In Canada domestically it’s the pro-unborn baby killers who have forced provinces to provide taxpayer funded abortion in order to keep getting tax dollars from the federal government. Agencies such as the Court Challenges Program shut down by the current Conservative government were vehicles for channelling tax dollars to pet leftist groups to fund court challenges against the government. If there have been any strings – and there should be if we want our democratically elected governments to be accountable for the tax dollars they spend – they have largely been in favour of leftist agenda, even by moderate “Christian” aid groups. If there has been a tiny bit of string-pulling towards conservative values, it’s nothing compared to the power and pressure of the UN and other leftist groups pushing abortion, forced sterilization and failed sex education agendas on developing countries and the human slaughter count from those policies is stunning but I don’t hear any sanctimonious rats on the left lamenting these tragedies.
December 23, 2009
Regarding the site editor’s point number 4, words are important, and this importance extends to such incidentals as Jeff Sharlett’s inclination to “trust science on evolution.” What he really means to say is that he “trusts the majority of contemporary scientists on evolution.” Their religion is secular humanism, and they believe in evolutionism because it provides a basis for their humanism. Whatever observation and logic we use to support our positions, in the end we hold our root presuppositions because we choose to. That is to say, we believe in them.
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However, when now I hear of such scientists as Phil Jones and Michael Mann, then I no longer even believe that all evolutionist scientists are sincere believers in their own evolutionism. If they cynically misrepresent and exaggerate the climate change phenomenon for their own ends, then why not also the evolutionism? The potential for dishonest financial gain is perhaps not the same, but I’m sure that commitment to a creationist position is not the way to advance one’s career, generally speaking.
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But I’m glad to know, at least, that Jeff Sharlet has no problem with creationism being taught in the schools. I hope that in his next comment he will say that he DOES have a problem with homosexuality and sexual promiscuity being taught in the schools. At least some African countries are concertedly working to end such depraved child abuse.