Uganda, and a comment on the War Against Kevin Jennings

A quickie, noting some significant developments in the "Kill Gays" bill before the Ugandan parliament.

First, from Jim Burroway, this note about an op ed in the Ugandan official news, written by a close adviser to the president. It seems pretty strong to me:

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?

Remember that this is the government owned news outlet.

My second note is about Rick Warren, Obama's favorite Christianist. He's changed direction on the "Kill Gays" bill -- I guess he sort of had to, given his close ties to one of the bill's chief architects, Martin Ssempa. Warren originally tried to stay out of it:

However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations." On Meet the Press this morning, he reiterated this neutral stance in a different context: "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides."

However, it seems the PR disaster-in-the-making was too much. Here's his statement as of this week:



He's gotten a lot of praise from the gay blogs for this one, but Ed Brayton is calling bullshit:

Without even acknowledging that he's flipped positions completely, one can only assume that the real reason for doing so is because he's taking a lot of heat for it and is in damage control mode. Anyone who has followed Warren for any length of time recognizes this as a pattern, where he backs vile policies and then pretends that he never did - even when he did so on video for the world to see.

He explicitly compared gay marriage to incest and beastiality, then lied and said he didn't. He explicitly endorsed Prop 8 in California and told his followers to vote for that referendum, then lied and said he didn't. In both cases, we have him on video saying exactly what he later denied saying. And he has never owned up to the lies.

This is Rick Warren's MO. We should all be used to it by now. So pardon me if I don't join others in praising his disingenuous johnny-come-lately statement. If he actually meant it, he would have said it the first time he was asked about it.

Rick Warren is, I think, one of the most facile snake-oil salesmen on the right. The only thing that keeps him out of the same league as, say, Lou Sheldon, Peter LaBarbera, Fred Phelps, and that whole wing is that he's not crazy. He's just a very shrewd manipulator who, for a change, is not a conspiracy thinker. Yes, of course he's a liar -- he sort of has to be, now doesn't he? But he's come out an made a video condemning the Ugandan bill in no uncertain terms. (And, as a sidebar, how is it that his good friend, president Obama, has remained mum? Any guesses on the depth of his commitment to equality for gays and lesbians?)

And speaking of Liars for Jesus, check out this post at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters. I'm not going to excerpt it here, because it's something you need to read in its entirety. It's pretty gruesome. I will say, however, that I'd like to get this Allie Duzett in a corner and ask her some hard questions, starting with "How, as a Christian, do you justify spreading lies and inciting hatred against a total stranger?" I'd love to hear her answer.