Your “News flash” about human sacrifice makes you look extraordinarily silly, considering the third paragraph of my original piece links to a story on child sacrifice in Uganda. In fact, that’s why I chose the example: it’s something that already exists without a Western nobody showing up to preach to the converted. Your emphasis of that fact only proves my point.

You also write that “homosexuality is illegal because that section of the law was inherited from colonialists.” You sound like Barack Obama insisting everything that goes wrong in America is due to the problems he inherited from the Bush/Cheney cabal. At some point, we all have to own our circumstances and cease blaming others. And again, you reemphasize my point: laws against homosexuality predate the anti-gay conference last March.

The rest of your post is anti-Christian bigotry and smears. Why shouldn’t there be churches in residential neighborhoods, Paul? Also, you write that “many Christians in America would be quite happy to see the same legislation introduced in Uganda.” That is complete and utter bull, and bigoted bull at that. You are railing against a bigoted stereotype.

The solution to bigotry is not more bigotry, and your time is wasted tilting at American windmills. It is a homophobic culture hungry for validation, and not the validation itself that needs to be addressed.

Those 3 ‘experts’ were not invited by the government – they were invited by a fundamentalist Christian organisation. In Uganda we are suffering from such over-Christianisation. We have about four terrestrial 24-hour evangelical “prosperity gospel meets faith healing and demon busting” channels in this small country. All of them spewing virulently homophobic messages. Every street corner has a Pentecostal church – even in residential areas! Evalngelicals and Pentecostals are the most vocal of religious groups and they are the ones guiding the Christian agenda in this country – dragging Catholics and Anglicans along with them.

So when 3 ‘experts’ find an already superstitious society – were fundamentalist Christianity has captured more or less the entire population, having been exposed to years of anti-gay messages on TV – and tells them that gays are here to DESTROY YOUR FAMILY and RECRUIT YOUR CHILDREN, you shouldn’t surprised that bills like Bahati’s emerge.

Why this hasn’t happened in America is that you have a strong civil rights culture, and wide spread mainstream secularism that acts as a buffer against such lunacy. You ARE aware that many Christians in America would be quite happy to see the same legislation introduced in Uganda, right?

You said: “By your logic, I could pen a book on human sacrifice, head to Uganda to make a few speeches promoting its virtues in combating the anti-family agenda, and suddenly the right to human sacrifice would be well on it’s way to becoming Ugandan law”

ME: News flash – whether or not it is currently illegal – MANY Ugandans practice child human sacrifice. Even without misconstruing my logic (like you just did), you wouldn’t even need to pass a bill to legalise it. Child sacrifice is rampant, and there has not been a SINGLE conviction to date.

Rob, Uganda is a country where belief in witchcraft – even by university degree holders is widespread. I live here. I know. My friends go to witchdoctors. I am therefore right to call them irrational. Do you have another word that best describes belief in witchcraft, besides ‘irrational’? If so, I’d certainly like to hear it.

Scott Lively and his nasty little crew of hatemongers spread the same lies in America. Why is it that the vast majority of Americans don’t believe in a global homosexual agenda? Why isn’t the United States Congress considering a “death to gays” bill?

The fact is, people will search high and low to find “proof” that justifies all kinds of bizarre beliefs. Ugandan leaders could have dredged up nineteenth century phrenology texts and started counting the bumps on the heads of gays and lesbians to build a case against them. They could have found so-called experts to support any manner of nonsense. But they chose to bring these three people to Africa, the conference attendees chose to find them credible, and David Bahati chose to submit a bill that proposes extermination of gays as a “solution.” By your logic, I could pen a book on human sacrifice, head to Uganda to make a few speeches promoting its virtues in combating the anti-family agenda, and suddenly the right to human sacrifice would be well on it’s way to becoming Ugandan law.

In addition, there was clearly far more than a “cultural disdain for homosexuals” if it was against the law before Scott Lively was even a twinkle in his daddy’s eye.

What the 3 evangelicals achieved through their visit was this:

1. Successfully conflating homosexuality with pedopehelia. “Homosexuals specifically target teenagers” ranted Scott Lively at the March 2009 conference. They “RECRUIT!!”. This was perhaps their most important contribution to paving the way for this bill.

2. Successfully portraying gays as deviants who want to ruin society.

3. Making Ugandans believe in a global homosexual agenda.

4. That gays can change if they want to

What was formally just a cultural disdain for homosexuals turned into VICIOUS HATRED of homosexuals, thanks to the literature and speeches of Scott Lively.

Religious and political leaders in Uganda quote verbatim from Scott Lively’s books about the gay agenda, destroying families, recruiting children, etc..Just read the Ugandan newspapers – its all there to see.

Thanks.