By Hudu Hussein
For those unaware, the power of making laws in this country rests with the Parliament under Article 79 of the constitution. It is required that the laws are made for the good governance of this country. Before a bill is passed into law, it must undergo a process in parliament which after it has passed the bill, the president either assents to it or declines to. According to the text, whether he passes or not, the bill will still pass into law so long as the parliament insists; so far, that has never happened in Uganda. Thanks to the good leadership of Right Honorable Anita Anet Among, the bill criminalizes the act of homosexuality, promotion of homosexuality and recruitment of minors into the practice of homosexuality. Contrary to the fake news, the highest penalty for the offences there is ten years.
The Anti homosexuality bill will become principle law. Since its passing, three sides of interest have emerged and probably a fourth one too. The first seem to be the majority Ugandans who simply hate the act of homosexuality and perceive it as gross. It is doubtless that most Ugandans do not even consider homosexuality an issue of discussion.
It is so obviously abominable that it’s not worthy of debate; this is the view of several and the majority Ugandans who are not in towns or social media. Our old fathers and mothers and the youths in the villages detached from the twitter and Facebook spaces don’t consider homosexuality an issue worth discussion. They do not even know about the complex debates on human rights. One thing is certain though, they’d be happy and glad to engage in stoning or isolating a gay person.
To the second group of elitists traveling to the West on business class and splashing good English spiced with the legalese of human rights and “elitism”, the first group of the majority village-based Ugandans is barbaric and backward in being so violently opposed to a man having sex with a fellow man or a woman with a fellow woman.
This second group of Ugandans have a mainly foreign based support ground with a lot of money and influence. It also includes the gays themselves and a group of westernized professors and ‘thinkers’ who, though married with children think these gays have rights and deserve to get married and openly express their ‘love’. They see themselves as open minded and up to date with global civilization. This group also has the law professors who will challenge this Act in the constitutional court claiming it is discriminatory and offends Article 21 of the constitution.
Ugandans, majority of them, perceive this second group as spoiled, unreasonable and profiteering monetarily from the west which is in the profession of advocating for gay rights and the gay lifestyle.
The third group where I partly belong are the well-educated and exposed Ugandans on social media who hate homosexuality with everything in them. These ones are all over social media abusing both the deed and the doers. They are distinctively unique because they know a friend or public figure, musician or any sort of celebrity that’s gay. They hate homosexuality as much as the first group, but the difference is that for them, they know about homosexuality, they know gays, they are educated and exposed but still hate it to the extremes. While they may not carry stones to kill a gay, they are excited at the bill parliament just passed and they use Twitter and Facebook to stone the gays at all angles.
The fourth group where I and honorable Member of Parliament Charles Onen fall is the most African! This group believes in a rare but reasonable idea that the promotion of homosexuality has the unfortunate potential of devaluing the sweetness of a woman. To them, or should I say to us, there is nothing sweater than a woman in this world or the world to come. We strongly believe that sex has brought down kingdoms because of one thing – the woman. The notion of homosexuality therefore not only devalues women but also denies so many the opportunity of discovering the highest point of human pleasure on earth. This group is the silent majority.
That said, whichever group you associate yourself with among the four, majority of Ugandans do not want gays or the promotion of homosexuality.
The west cannot force us to accept and legalize homosexuality either. The danger of the vice is that once it becomes publicly acceptable, our children, whose innocent minds we strive to guard against what we regard as immoral, will be left exposed to the idea of homosexuality. Already, despite its illegality, the powerful second group has penetrated schools and infected children at a very early age. There are many confused young girls whose first sexual experience was in a dormitory with a fellow girl or boy fully employed by these gay activists. I appeal to the constitutional court to be alive to Article 126 of the constitution which gives judicial power to the courts and instructs them to exercise it in sync with the norms and values of Ugandans. Our norms and values are fully embedded in the Anti – Homosexuality bill.
Hudu Hussein is a Lawyer and RDC/Lwengo
