Gays in Uganda may be sentenced to death

PanARMENIAN.Net - A bill that would make the death sentence mandatory for gays who are "repeat offenders" was reintroduced in Uganda's parliament on Tuesday, Feb 7, a move likely to draw fresh condemnation from Western aid donors, Reuters reported.

The bill was originally proposed as a private member's bill in 2009 by David Bahati, a legislator with the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, provoking an international outcry.

U.S. President Barack Obama denounced the bill as "odious", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to reject it and some international donors threatened to cut aid if it became law.

The bill was shelved last May. The cabinet took it over and, after widespread international condemnation, said in August it had decided to drop the bill because existing laws were sufficient to deal with homosexual crimes.

A small but vocal anti-gay movement, led by several MPs and a group of bishops, said it was determined to reintroduce the proposed legislation.

Homosexuality is taboo in many African nations. It is illegal in 37 countries on the continent, including Uganda, and activists say few Africans are openly gay, fearing imprisonment, violence and loss of jobs.

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, California’s voter-backed Proposition 8 law declaring marriage to be only between a man and a woman was ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.

The San Francisco-based court, ruling 2-1, today upheld the 2010 decision of a federal court judge who said the measure violated constitutional equal protection rights of same-sex couples. That ruling came in the first federal trial over whether it’s legal to ban marriage by gays and lesbians.