The White House Condemns Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill (Finally!)

Following are some if the latest developments concerning the Uganda "Kill the Gays" bill.

After a week in which the LGBT blogosphere was lit up with the story of Uganda's pending "Kill the Gays" bill and non-stop coverage of the story from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (the only mainstream coverage on the issue) and a plea from snake-oil salesman Pastor Rick Warren for his latest fan base to soften the bill, the White House has issued a statement condemning the legislation.

In response to an inquiry from The Advocate for a comment on the subject, the White House responded saying, “The President strongly opposes efforts, such as the draft law pending in Uganda, that would criminalize homosexuality and move against the tide of history.”

Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin reports that John Nagenda, senior adviser to Uganda's president Museveni wrote a measured Op Ed in the government-owned newspaper, New Vision, saying,

"And that is where same-sex lovers’ haters will do their nut! The recent month I was away a parliamentarian introduced a Bill of hugely draconian measure, including heavy penalties on those who wouldn’t report same-sex lovers they knew about! In the US there was a man whose name, McCarthy, is now a synonym (as McCarthyism) for cruel witch-hunting. For him Communism was the hot issue, although he would doubtless have looked at same-sex love as a product of that political system."

"In the Inquisition period, evil prelates tortured people who deviated from current beliefs, including by saying the world was not flat but round! Now we all laugh about these odd characters. Lower down the scale, people were tortured for being left-handed (indeed called sinister for it) or being very short, or being blind: in short for not being normal. I believe, and I am raising the bar, that we must laugh at this MP and others like him: laugh and stay sane. What crime have same-sex lovers committed, per se, by being who they are? Would those who believe God made mankind exclude them, and on what grounds?"

 The UK paper, The Guardian reports this morning on the homophobic trend among African nations.

Uganda is likely to pass a law within months that will make homosexuality a capital offence, joining 37 other countries in the continent where American evangelical Christian groups are increasingly spreading bigotry.

LezGetReal reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury has finally spoken out on the issue as well. The archbishop was criticized this week by progressive Episcopalians who accused the leader of the Anglican Church of  "failing to exercise moral leadership to protect gays and lesbians in Uganda" and instead being overly focused on the controversial election of the church's second openly gay bishop, Rev. Mary Glasspool by the diocese or Los Angeles.